After a week or so at Potchefstroom, Carson returned to Johannesburg, to
find Rosser beating the town for him, crazy with impatience. Wallerstein
had offered seven hundred pounds apiece for the South Rands, but Rosser
had not closed; he considered it madness not to stand out for eight
hundred.
"It'll only be a matter of a week or two," said he. But Carson gloomed
and cursed. It maddened him to find the thing still unsettled, for he
had made up his mind not to return to Durban until he knew definitely
whether he had poverty or wealth--both comparative, of course--to offer
to the woman of his heart. However, as he had stayed so long already, a
few days more could not make much difference, he argued lifelessly with
himself, so he gave a grudging half-assent to Rosser and went his ways.
He still had several minor affairs to attend to, and various people to
see, but he did all half-heartedly. Choosing and despatching a ring to
Poppy was the only thing that gave him any joy, and that was too
poignant for pleasure. Then, suddenly, in one day he grew restless and
haggard. Hunger was on him for the sight of a face, and at last he knew
he could wait no longer, but must go. The decision came upon him
suddenly in the Club with the sight and scent of a gardenia Forsyth was
wearing in his coat at lunch-time. Now, between the scent of a gardenia
and the scent of Barbadoes-thorn there is scarcely any difference at
all, except that the gardenia's fragrance is perhaps more subtly
insistent. Carson spun out of the Club into a cab and in fifteen minutes
was in his broker's office.
"Close for seven hundred pounds each, Rosser," he said briskly. "And get
the whole thing fixed up as soon as possible. I'm leaving to-night."
"Oh, but I've already closed for eight hundred pounds each," chirruped
the elated Rosser. "The transfer is completed and the money paid in." He
pranced into an inner office and produced voluminous documents. "Loot,
my son! Loot from the house of Rimmon! I take my little fifteen thousand
pounds and you take twenty-five thousand. Isn't _that_ all right? _Now_
will you be good!"
An hour later Carson regained his cab and was driven to his rooms. A
portmanteau at _Vetta's_ head was a sufficient indication of his
intentions, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in settling up his
remaining business matters and appointments by telegram and telephone.
Then he dined, and caught the eight o'clock express by one minute and a
half. _Vetta_, who was on the look-out for him, indicated an empty
first-class, and Carson fell into it and slept like the dead until
morning.
Those were the days when the run between Johannesburg and Durban
occupied the better part of twenty-seven hours. The first stop of any
importance was at Volksrust, the boundary town, and Carson roused
himself to take a look at country he knew well, and was not likely to
see again for many years. It was as early as five A.M., and a wet salt
mist lay over everything, chilling him to the bone as he opened his
window and looked out at the bleak Drakensberg looming through the haze,
and tragic Majuba, which throws a shadow athwart every brave man's path
as he passes. Later, the train dashed through the Laing's Nek tunnel,
and as it descended the sloping spur of the range, Natal lay before
Carson's eyes--all beautiful green valleys and running water: the land
of his desire. The mist had cleared from the air, but it still seemed
to obscure Carson's vision as he looked, and he passed Ingogo, and Mount
Prospect, with ill-fated Colley's monument, unknowingly. Only the far
blue haze that meant the coast lured his eyes, for there for him lay
heart's content.
Presently, at Newcastle, came the faithful _Vetta_ with tidings of
breakfast; and Carson scrambled amongst a weary, sleepy crowd, in which
he recognised no face, for sandwiches and vile coffee flung at him, half
in cup and half in saucer. When he had breakfasted in this fashion,
taken a leisurely stroll, glanced in all the carriages to see if there
could possibly be any passengers he knew, inspected the accommodation of
_Vetta_, and inquired into the matter of the latter's breakfast, he
returned to his carriage. There was still a residue of sixteen hours to
get through before the journey ended. Having no reading-matter with him,
he thought at first to kill time with pleasant thoughts of a woman in a
garden, but it was presently borne in upon him that his consciousness,
or conscience, or memory, or whatever he may have cared to call it, had
another and less agreeable affair to consider with him. Something
within, that he would fain have cursed into silence, earnestly solicited
his attention to the fact that the train which was crawling with him to
the woman he loved, was at the same time tearing with most indecent
haste towards one whom he had never loved, and the hour in which he must
tell her so. Presently the thought of that hour lashed him, cut him with
knives, turned him sick.
In time, he stared at the wild and rugged outline of the Biggarsberg,
until it seemed blurred with a red haze; and as the flat and dreary land
of stunted bush that lies between Elandslaagte and Howick unrolled
itself monotonously before his window, rocks appeared to grin and gibe
at him, and isolated trees menaced him with gnarled arms, even as in
Wiertzs's picture Napoleon is menaced by the arms of women.
As the hours passed his eyes grew bloodshot and his throat dry. His
mouth sneered with self-contempt; unconsciously his lips opened and
closed, and he swallowed with the expression of a man who is tasting the
bitterness of death. But through all, his heart held steadfast to one
plan--the man's plan, the old plan that was in the beginning and shall
be till the end.
Later, he lay on the seat of the carriage, his face to the wall, his
eyes closed, his hands clenched--thinking, thinking. He would remember
Poppy's shut eyes as he kissed her under the flamboyant tree; how her
throat shone in the darkness. Then a voice, _not hers_, would break in
upon him, crying:
"Evelyn, I love you. For your sake men may brand me--swear you will
never forsake me for another woman!"
Did he ever swear? Was that his voice he seemed to hear?--tender,
fervent--swearing by her face, by his life, by----
"Oh, Lord God! what a blackguard!" he groaned aloud.
But his heart held steadfast to his plan.
When at last evening fell, the train reached Maritzburg, and the
passengers poured out into the station dining-room. Carson,
haggard-eyed, found the bar, and drank three brandies atop of each
other. He was on the point of ordering a fourth when a Maritzburg
acquaintance stepped in and saved him the trouble--slapping him on the
shoulder, and claiming his attention with a little scheme, which he said
Bramham was standing in with. It was something about coal, but Carson
never afterwards remembered details, though he listened very politely
and intently to every word, for it was good to be spoken to by a decent
man as if he were another decent man, after those years of degradation
in the train.
The four brandies might have been poured over a rock for all the effect
he felt of them; but when the starting bell rang, he made his way back
to the train through the hustling crowd with a calmer mien, and leaning
from the window, wrung his acquaintance's hand with unassumed warmth.
Ever afterwards he felt real friendship for that Maritzburg man.
To his surprise, he found that he now had a fellow-passenger, a lady.
Her figure seemed vaguely familiar as she stood packing her things into
the rack, and when she turned round he wondered where in the world
before he had met the unabashed gaze of those large brown eyes beneath a
massed fringe of dusty, crispy hair. She, on her part, was regarding him
with the pleased smile of an old acquaintance.
"Sir Evelyn Carson! How funny!" she said, and smiled winningly. Carson
bowed, and his smile was ready and courteous, for, in truth, he was glad
not to be alone; but he continued to greatly wonder.
"I believe you don't remember me!" said she archly. "How unkind! And
I've so often bowed to Mr. Bramham when you've been with him in the old
days. And you've been to Brookie's office, too, when I was his
seckertary."
At last Carson was enlightened. He was, in fact, in the pleasant company
of Miss Sophie Cornell.
"Ah! yes, of course--I remember quite well," said he. Indeed, if she
could but have known it, he remembered a good deal more than was
flattering, for Bram's tale of highway-robbery was still clear in his
mind. She had changed a good deal since then: grown coarser and more
florid--and there were other things--! When a woman has flung her kisses
to the world as generously as summer flings daisies in a green meadow,
the tale of them is marked upon her face for all who run to read.
However, her dress was black, and so extremely neat that it was a pity
she should have spoiled its effectiveness by wearing a pair of yellow
_suede_ evening shoes.
Carson was not surprised when she informed him that she had left the
uninteresting field of typewriting, to adorn a profession where beauty
and wit are more readily recognised and liberally remunerated.
"I am in an _awfully_ nice bar in Maritzburg," she told him
languorously. "Come in and have a drink next time you are there--'The
Falcon.' All my friends were _awfully_ annoyed with me for leaving
_literary_ work, but really it was _so_ dull--and, of course, it's a
great mistake to think one can't stay _a lady_, whatever one does; don't
you think so, Sir Evelyn, eh?"
"Certainly!" he gravely agreed.
"I am treated as _quite_ the lady by all the smartest men in the town,
and there's a great difference between that and being bullied from
morning to night by a little bounder like Brookie, you know. Not that he
didn't have his good points. But still, the way he treated me in the end
was perfectly _frot_[6], and there's no other word for it. In fact,
everybody did. Charlie Bramham, now, always said he'd be my friend, but
as soon as it suited him, he just scooted off and never came near me
again ... after persuading me in the first place to come to Durban to
work for him."
[6] Rotten.
"Oh! Bramham's a good fellow," said Carson, smiling at this new version
of a tale of highway-robbery. "I don't think he could have behaved very
badly."
"Good fellows and bad fellows are all just the same when they're tired
of you," said Miss Cornell feelingly; adding, with great hauteur: "Not
that I ever allowed any man to get tired of _me_, Sir Evelyn, I assure
you. There's not a single fellow in Africa can say a _thing_ about me."
This was very impressive, but Carson did not exactly know what it might
mean. He only knew that he was growing a little weary.
"And then there was a girl that I befriended. I took her in when she
came to my house without a rag to her back, or a shoe to her foot, one
night--fed her, clothed her, and treated her like my own sister--or
would have done if she hadn't been such a cold-blooded, standoffish
_slang_.[7] Yet I can assure _you_, Sir Evelyn, that when I was on the
Durban Race-course three weeks ago, with two _perfect gentlemen_ from
the Rand, she sat quite close to me in a carriage with that Mrs. Portal,
and though I smiled and bowed to her _twice_, she deliberately looked
right through me.... I might have been a bit of rubbish lying in the
street...."
[7] Snake.
Something in this narrative dimly, though unpleasantly, interested
Carson. He forgot his weariness for the moment and looked at the woman
intently.
"Yes ... what do you think of that? Deliberately _cut_ me ... me who had
been her friend in need. I supposed it was because she had managed to
get taken up by a big-pot like Mrs. Portal.... I said so to one of my
friends--such a nice boy--you may know him--Wolfie Isaacs, of the firm
of Isaacs and Jacobs. But after he'd been away talking to some other
men, he came back and told me that _she_ was the great authoress who
wrote all the cracked books and poems about Africa, and that everyone
was raving about her. He said I must have made a mistake when I thought
I knew her! What do you think of _that_? The girl I had taken in without
any shoes to her feet!... and, oh my! couldn't I tell a tale to her
swell friend Mrs. Portal if I--" Something in the steely expression of
the face opposite suddenly arrested her flow of eloquence.
"Do you mind telling me whom you are talking about?" said Carson
quietly.
"Certainly--I'm delighted to. It is only fair that everybody should know
what a _slang_ that girl is, to cut _me_ like that, who had taken her in
without asking a single question about where she came from.... Och! but
I can tell you I found out afterwards, Sir Evelyn ... she's as bad as
she can be, that Rosalind Chard----"
Carson's tanned skin had turned an ashy-yellow shade, which was neither
becoming nor artistic.
"Woman--" he said in a low, hoarse voice, scarcely audible; but his eyes
said a great deal more than his lips; and Miss Cornell, at first
surprised, became angrily red.
"Och! don't you _woman_ me!" she cried, bridling. "So _you're_ a friend
of hers, too, I suppose! She's got very grand all at once!... but I
wonder if she told you she used to be constantly in a house on the Berea
with Luce Abinger. That it was from _his_ house she came that night I
took her in! My _boy_ Zambani saw her come through the gap in the hedge
that led from Abinger's garden. Ha! ha! and she pretending to be such a
saint all the time! Ask Mr. Bramham! He knows all about it."
Carson took it like a blow between the eyes. If he had not been sitting,
he would have reeled. As it was, he leaned against the back of the seat
and closed his eyes for a moment, though the lids scorched like flame.
But the woman mistook his attitude for calm unbelief. She thought he
shut his eyes because he was pretending to be bored, and she was
furious.
"And she pretending to be such a saint all the time," she repeated. "A
saint in the company of Luce Abinger!" she laughed coarsely.
Carson's eyes were still closed. He was considering--as well as fury,
and surprise, and misery, and four neat brandies become suddenly potent
would let him.
Would this woman dare bade up her vile statement with Bramham's name,
unless--?... but there must be some explanation. She and Abinger! Oh,
God! _no!_ Bram could explain ... she could explain ... if she could
not, he would kill her ... he would take her by that long, fair
throat----
At that the coldness and calmness of moonlight fell upon him like a
pall; his brain cleared; he reflected on the inflamed, furious face
opposite him, surveying it deliberately, insultingly, with stony,
arrogant eyes. Slowly his handsome lips took on a curve of incomparable
insolence and contempt--a look no woman could ever forgive. In that
moment Sophie Cornell knew what she was. The colour left her face, and
her lips and tongue went dry; She had no words.
His voice was almost gentle.
"It would be scarcely fair to expect a woman of your" (he paused)
"_inducements_--to understand that Miss Chard's reasons for----"
"No," she sneered, hissing like a cobra. "No--of course not--a _saint_
like that! But I know well enough what sort of a man Luce Abinger
is--and so do you. His name isn't spelt L-o-o-s-e for nothing."
That arrow quivered in Carson, but he gave no sign, going on
deliberately:
"--For knowing Mr. Abinger might be different to your reasons--or shall
we say inducements?"
She hated him with her eyes.
"You would scarcely credit, perhaps, but there _are_ other things of
interest in the world besides--inducements. And that the side of Mr.
Abinger's character which appears to be so well known to you, is one
that he reserves specially for ladies of your--distractions."
He smiled and added:
"I'm afraid you hardly realise how distracting you are. Here am I, for
instance, with a number of pressing matters waiting for my
attention"--he put his hand into the breastpocket of his coat and
brought out a bundle of letters and papers--"neglecting them to indulge
in a fascinated contemplation of you. But if you will be good enough to
release me----"
Miss Cornell damped her lips with her tongue.
"I hate Rosalind Chard," she said hoarsely, "but I am sorry for her, all
the same, if she gets you. I think you are the worst devil I've ever met
in my life. Talk about the three bad men! Abinger and Charlie Bramham
are angels compared to you."
"I will let 'Charlie' know of your favourable opinion of him--he will be
flattered. Pray excuse me!" He looked apologetically at the papers in
his hand.
"Oh! go to hell!" she screamed. Carson bowed, and with that insolent
smile still lingering on his lips, gave his attention to his letters.
At Inchanga he stepped out of the carriage and looked about him with
careless interest, lighted a cigarette, and presently lounged down the
platform. Incidentally he went into the telegraph-office and sent off a
wire, requesting Bramham to meet him at the station or be at home
waiting for him. When he came out of the little office he was still
smoking placidly, but the writing on the telegraph-form resembled the
writing of a drunken or palsied man.
On his return to the carriage he found that Miss Cornell had been good
enough to remove her distracting presence to some other part of the
train.