to him for a mere song by nothing but a look. Of course, they are not
allowed to buy cattle really, but if they are married their wives buy
them instead sometimes, and then the Commissioner in an outlying
district can fairly easily fix the price, if he has made himself a
dread to all the kraals round. He can collect taxes, too, not strictly
just, to make his accounts look well at headquarters."
"But I thought Native Commissioners were always gentlemen?"
"They are generally, but they don't all live up to the usually
accepted standard. Some of them seem rather to glory in behaving like
bounders and treating the native unjustly. It is bad for the country,
but things are improving. Almost all new appointments now are made
among public-school boys and Varsity men."
"And do you think Major Carew is here about some such matters?"
"Yes; but it isn't given out so, and no one knows just what. But the
natives are fortunate to have him on their side. He is not in the
least afraid, and he won't shelter any unjust steward. On the other
hand, whatever complaints there are against the natives will be just
as honestly examined, and woe betide the kraals that are in the wrong!
He is no Exeter Hall sentimentalist, and they must know it pretty well
by now."
"Why do you think he is out here at all? Surely he might have been a
general with his K.C.M.G. if he had stayed in the army?"
"I rather fancy Carew would think that a small thing compared to what
he has done in Rhodesia. After all, K.C.M.G.'s are pretty cheap
nowadays, aren't they? But it isn't every man who can know a new
country is grateful to him, and who has achieved all he has at a work
he loves."
"Why did he come?" Still Diana strove vainly to hide her interest. "Do
you know?"
"Adventure, probably. A good many men from crack regiments came in the
early days."
"There must have been something more."
"Perhaps."
"Don't you _know_?"
"No." He looked at her with a little smile. "It isn't the game to ask
questions out here."
"That is just what Mr. Stanley said, and it is so dull of you both.
The man's a perfect bear. I christened him 'The Bear' before I had
known him an hour. But why is he? Why should he be? That's what I
want to know."
"I don't fancy you will. I doubt if anyone knows. He has never made
friends, I think, out here, except with the Grenvilles, and they are
some connection."
"That's the missionary and his wife, isn't it? What in the world can a
man like that see in a missionary? Of all the soppy, flabby
individuals give me the usual specimen who goes out to preach
Christianity to the heathen, and generally disgusts them and everyone
else."
"Not this missionary."
"O, is he an original also?"
"He's one of the finest men I've ever known."
"Then what in the world is _he_ buried in the wilderness for? I never
knew anything so absurd. A fine soldier and administrator, just a
policeman; a splendid man, just a missionary. And you and your brother
just grubbing about in a God-forsaken mine, apparently for nothing. It
is enough to make anyone wild." And she faced him with that
smouldering indignation she rarely allowed to come to the surface.
"But they are both in Rhodesia"--ignoring her kindly inclusion of
himself and his brother--"and Rhodesia wants good men."
"And when she gets them just buries them at her outposts. I haven't
much faith in your Rhodesia. She is a capricious jade. She absorbs a
man's finest qualities and best years and gives him nothing in
return."
"Ask Carew if she gives him nothing. Probably she has given him more
than anyone else could give."
She got up impatiently. "All the more reason why he shouldn't be such
a bear. People who have got what they want out of life ought to be
amiable and friendly."
She turned round, and found herself face to face with Carew himself,
looking, if anything grimmer than ever.
"I came to tell you that tea is ready, and the others have already
commenced."
Diana looked straight into his eyes, with a daring, challenging
expression. "And you heard me discussing your amiable attributes? I'm
sorry, but"--with a swift gleam--"I do discuss something else
sometimes."
"I heard nothing," he answered, returning her direct gaze, and stood
aside for her to pass.
XI
AN EVENING RIDE
As they rode home in the evening Diana, more nettled with Carew's
impassivity than she would have cared to own, contrived to get a
little apart from the others with her uncle, and in her frank,
engaging way explained to him the rapaciousness of certain mining
companies and her own promise on behalf of the donkeys. Mr. Pym
regretted that he could not immediately grant her request without
consulting his co-directors, but Diana knew perfectly, by the friendly
gleam in his eye, that he meant to look into the question; and because
he was impressed by the sturdy, plucky fight of the two brothers he
would probably do a good deal more for them in the end.
After which she prattled to him gaily, until Stanley was clever enough
to distract her attention and remanipulate the party. He had been
riding with Carew, and the engineer with Meryl; but on the party being
disarranged the engineer joined Mr. Pym to discuss the mining
properties they had been visiting, and Carew found himself unavoidably
partnered with Meryl, while Stanley and Diana went gaily on ahead. It
was the first time, what he was pleased to term "his luck" had
deserted him. Heretofore there had been no single _tête-à-tête_
between him and either of the cousins since Diana surprised him in the
temple ruins. It was his fixed intention that there should be none. He
argued in himself that he had no "small talk" in his vocabulary, and
would only reciprocate the boredom he would himself suffer, and rather
than either should be inflicted he steered a resolute course which
partnered him with a man. In vain Diana, spurred by pique, had once or
twice laid a trap for him; and Meryl, with growing interest, had
sought to draw him into conversation. With masterly art he had steered
clear of both, and continued his serene, impassive way.
But on that homeward ride Fate, for once, got the better of him.
Stanley and Diana were cantering gaily ahead along the narrow path,
that meant smooth-going for one horse and a stumbling amid small rocks
or long, dry grass for the other; while Mr. Pym and his engineer
conversed with a solemnity no one could lightly disturb between the
two front horsemen and the two back.
At first Carew rode along with his eyes fixed rigidly on the horizon,
and, except for its innate strength, an almost expressionless face.
Meryl was a little amused. She realised thoroughly that the situation
was none of his seeking, and she was in two minds whether to give him
expressionless rigidity in return, or purposely tease him with
questions. At first she chose silence, and looked around her with eyes
of growing tenderness at the kopje-strewn country.
And so, instead of being irritated with the "small talk" he dreaded,
Carew found himself left entirely to his own cogitations; while,
judging from her rapt expression, she scarcely realised his presence.
And then, just because human nature is stronger, after all, than most
things, memory, for the sake of a dream-face he would treasure while
he had breath, made him look at her covertly with seeing eyes. He
noted first that she was a perfect horsewoman--slim and upright and
easy, almost like a part of her horse. Both girls rode astride,
wearing long holland coats and specially made light top-boots, with
large shady sun helmets; and because for a long time he had not seen
anything much but slipshod garments among women riders, or exceedingly
warm-looking correct home attire, he appreciated their cool smartness.
Unconsciously it took him back to the old buried days, when the
Devonshire moors and Devonshire lanes knew no hotter rider than Peter
Carew. To the steeplechases, when he was so slim and wiry that, in
spite of his height, he had ridden many a horse to victory. To the
polo matches, when his matchless horsemanship had scored goal after
goal for his regiment of picked riders. She recalled to his mind the
stag-hunting in Devon and Somerset, where the first women had ridden
astride to the meet, realising mercifully how the steep ascents and
descents were eased for their horses, without the tightly girthed
side-saddle, and for themselves without the side-seat strain. Almost
as if it were a carefully permitted luxury, he saw the wide,
wind-swept moors, heard the cheery shouts and the excited hounds, felt
his thoroughbred sweeping gloriously along, as if its soul and his
soul were both one in feeling the joy and exhilaration of the chase.
What glories there were in those wind-swept, sun-bathed mornings in
Devon! What joy of life! What lust of manhood! What splendid,
whole-hearted young inconsequence! In his heart he smiled a little
grimly. Peter Carew of the Blues had been no shunner of women in those
days; no taciturn, silent, unappreciative onlooker. Rather he had
loved too many, kissed too freely, ridden away too light-heartedly.
Until the blue-grey eyes, so like Meryl's, looked shyly up, and then
in their turn ran away from him. Of course, he had followed blindly
like the hot-headed, hard-riding sportsman he was--followed blindly,
wooed irresistibly, and won gloriously.
And then ...
Over the kopjes, over the vleis, over the veldt a black cloud came
down, and suddenly all the picture was blotted out. An expression that
was momentarily almost wistful left the fine mouth; the far-away
softness left the keen blue eyes, and his face hardened strangely.
Then he looked up at Meryl, riding beside him, and saw all the
questioning interest in her face.
"I'm afraid you have a very dull companion," he said; but it was in
the voice that Diana usually called his snarl.
Meryl smiled. "I did not for a moment suppose that you would talk."
She could hardly say that his face relaxed, but at least there was
that in it which suggested he liked her answer far better than any
conventional politeness.
Suddenly a wholly unlooked-for twinkle lurked somewhere in his eyes.
"Bears don't usually," he said.
Meryl laughed. "Diana is too fond of nicknaming her friends and
acquaintances; but on the whole I think she has let you off lightly. A
bear is a magnificent animal."
"Not given to much amiability. No Prince Charming, for instance," and
he smiled a little grimly.
"But strong--and--well--dangerous, which is better."
"You think so?" He looked at her rather curiously.
"Decidedly."
They rode on in silence, and, for a little way, the road being rough,
he reined in his horse to the narrow path behind her. Then, when it
grew smoother again, she waited for him to come alongside.
"You haven't always been in this part of Rhodesia?"
"No; only recently."
"Long enough to get very attached to it."
"More or less," and suddenly his voice hardened a little, as if
scenting a discussion and wishful to ward it off.
"I wonder why Rhodesia is so fascinating?" And her eyes roved with
love in them from far horizon to far horizon. "I suppose you do not
attempt to analyse it? You are content to care unquestioningly."
"Yes"--with an effort--"after a time, one just cares."
"And at first?..."
"At first one has to find one's footing, so to speak. She is somewhat
the bewildering, uncomfortable stranger to the new-comer."
She marvelled that he should say so much, but hid her pleasure lest
she should unwittingly change his mood.
"She has never seemed that to me. Something has attracted me from the
very first. I came, I saw, I loved."
"You must remember that you came under exceptional circumstances."
"And you?"
"I was among the early pioneers."
"How splendid! I wish I could say the same."
"It was extremely uncomfortable."
"But you didn't mind. I don't need to be told that. There was so much
to make up for it. How good it must be to be a man!"
"Yet the women are the true heroes out here."
"Why?"
"We get what we came for. Interest, excitement of a kind, freedom...."
"And the women?"
"There is not much for the women, but the plucky ones are often
heroines."
"Only no one tells them so?"
"No one tells them so; therein lies the heroism."
"I see. They put up a good fight, and no one says, 'Well done!' Isn't
it the same with the men?"
"The men get many compensations."
"Compensations that make it worth while?"
"Distinctly."
They rode on in silence, both looking ahead to the blue mountain that
guards the north of Zimbabwe. The peaceful loveliness soothed his
spirit because he loved it, but in her it awakened a vague, swift
ache. She felt somehow that he had a right to love the country,
because he had made it his and given it of his best; that, for all his
presumable poverty in many things, he was yet so rich in what he had
achieved, and in what he had won for himself of interest and
usefulness. While for her?... She was an alien, a mere tourist, a
looker-on; the daughter of a millionaire who came to Rhodesia for
wealth, and gave--how little in return!
He might look at the tender outline of the lovely mountain with the
glad, restful consciousness of work well done. She could only look at
it with that ache of divine discontent: unplumbed, wordless longing.
Even the heroism of the settler's wife was not for her. The women who
were plucky enough to put up that good fight, although no one ever
said "Well done!" Compared with them, in his eyes she was probably a
mere cumberer of the earth; an ornament, intended only to be admired
by the leisured classes. The young splendid country had no use for
her, no place for her. She was an alien, an interloper; child of a man
who came only for gain, and took his gain elsewhere, recognising no
claim from a land that was no home to him, only an investment.
Her soul cried out it was no wish of hers that it should be so; but
only silent condemnation seemed to echo back to her from the far blue
hills.
She glanced at the strong, serene face of her companion, and because
somehow he seemed a little less stern and uncompromising to-day she
said to him simply, leaning a little to his side:
"I envy you so, the sense that you have won the right to love her. I
envy the plucky settlers' wives who are the mothers of her future. I
feel myself so utterly an alien. Has Rhodesia any use for ... for such
as I?"
He looked at her strangely, and as he looked she saw an expression
almost like hungry longing come into his eyes; then as suddenly vanish
again, leaving him utterly amazingly stony. He turned his head
sharply, and his gaze became fixed and rigid.
"Millionaires' daughters can usually be pretty useful if they like,"
he said almost brutally; and she felt as if he had struck her. In
sudden anger and bewilderment she touched her horse with her whip and
darted ahead. It was not the words, but the way in which he had said
them. What did he mean?... What did he not mean?... She bit her lips
to keep back the smarting tears that blinded her eyes. She felt as if
she hated him. For a little space he had been so different to the
cold, callous soldier, and in quiet response she had spoken from her
heart; and in return he had said this cutting thing with cold intent,
making her feel that he despised her. Did he see in her only a willing
accomplice to her father's money-making schemes? The one perhaps who
spent the gains heartlessly and carelessly elsewhere? Beside those
settlers' wives he had said were heroines, was she but an idle,
contemptible, useless heiress? She spurred her horse on, letting her
thoughts run away with her, unwilling that he should overtake her
until she had got herself well in hand; and Carew followed behind,
feeling again that sense of a black, rayless abyss all about him. Why
had he looked full and deep into her eyes like that?... Why had he not
gazed only upon the mountains that soothed and refreshed him?... The
mere discovery that the past he thought to have outlived slept so
lightly was a shock to him. Had he not then outlived anything? Had he
only put his memories lightly to sleep, and dreamt all the life he had
lived since? He was scarcely conscious that he had said anything
inconsiderate; he hardly knew what he had said. He only remembered he
had looked full and deep into beautiful eyes, and suddenly it was as
though his dead love Joan had come back to him.
Presently she slowed down so that he came up to her, and it was
noticeable that something in her whole attitude had changed. She was
as upright as he now, and her eyes also looked rigidly ahead. He saw
the change without understanding it and wondered a little, without
troubling to probe.
"Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Grenville," she said coldly, "would they
care to see us if we called, or would they think it perhaps just
vulgar curiosity?"
"They would be delighted; visitors are a very rare treat to them." He
was puzzled a little at her manner, but let it pass. Meryl had it on
the tip of her tongue to add, "They don't mind even millionaires'
daughters?" but her own good taste saved her from a momentary
satisfaction that a man of his breeding could only have considered
bourgeoise.
"Perhaps Mr. Stanley would take us," was all she suffered herself; and
added, "From his account Mrs. Grenville is evidently one of Rhodesia's
heroines."
"She is," he answered so simply that Meryl felt a little nonplussed.
When they reached the camp Diana had already dismounted and gone into
their tent, whither Meryl followed her.
"Well," she said, "how did you get on with The Bear? Did he chore you
up over anything?"
Meryl considered a moment before replying. "One moment I thought him
the rudest man I have ever met, and the next ..." she seemed puzzled
how to explain.
"And the next I suppose he didn't seem a man at all, only a pillar of
stone!..."
For answer, she said thoughtfully, "I wonder if something hurt him
very badly some time or other?"
"If it did, it doesn't exempt him from the ordinary amenities of human
intercourse. He isn't the only man who has been hurt." And Diana
kicked off her boots impatiently.
"No," said Meryl; "but it makes it a little easier to forgive him."
"Don't do anything so foolish. You'll end by thinking him interesting
and falling in love with him; which would be too utterly silly when
you are as good as engaged to Dutch Willy, and when he, The Bear,
would care about as much as my foot," with which dictum she put her
head out through the tent flap, and called to Stanley and Carew,
"Hey! Mr. Stanley! don't go away. Stay and keep us company in my
uncle's absence. I believe he is venturing into The Bear's den
to-night."
Carew smiled quite frankly for him.
"Can't I tempt you to come also? I daren't promise you a decent
dinner, but I've some fresh Abdullah cigarettes out from home, if you
care to come down afterwards."
Diana was disarmed in spite of herself. "And will you promise to growl
very prettily?" with an arch expression.
"I'll try not to frighten you away too quickly."
Diana withdrew into the tent.
"O!" she said, "he's a bear with two faces; and that's the most
difficult to cope with of all."
XII
THE MISSION STATION
They went to the Grenvilles' the next day, while Mr. Pym took another
of his investigation trips. Stanley acted as escort, and Carew went to
Edwardstown on business.
Ailsa Grenville met them with her brightest smile, and ushered them
proudly into her cool, picturesque drawing-room hut.
"How charming!" they cried, with genuine delight; and Diana added, "O!
why can't I have a hut in the wilderness?..."
Then the khaki-clad, sportsmanlike missionary strode in, and after the
preliminary greetings Diana asked with charming piquancy, "O! are you
really and truly a missionary?"
"Really and truly," he told her gaily, and came over to her side of
the hut to sit beside her. "Why do you ask it like that?"
She considered a moment, and then declared impishly, "Because it
doesn't seem possible that a man like you should never say 'Damn.'"
He laughed outright. "Well, I'm not going to tell tales out of school;
but if you'd only got one pair of brown boots in the world and one
pair of brown gaiters, and the boy tried to clean them with blacklead
and paraffin oil!..."
Diana moved nearer to him, with her prettiest and most ingratiating
air. "O, tell me some more!... Tell me lots more."
"I don't think that is half so bad as the boy washing the saucepans
and the teacups all in the same water together," put in Mrs.
Grenville.
"How perfectly delicious of him!" cried Diana. "What else did he do?"
"You ought to have been here this morning when our stores came out
from Edwardstown," the missionary told her. "The boy carries them on
his head, you know; and there was a tin of golden syrup ..."
"Yes ... yes ... and it leaked!..." gleefully.
"Trickled all down his head and neck; you never saw such a sticky
mess! And as soon as the other boys discovered ..."
"Did they duck his head in a bucket?..."
"O, dear no!... _licked_ him!..."
Diana fairly howled with delight; and then Stanley came in, after
seeing that the horses were properly watered and fed, and was
immediately accosted by Grenville with, "Hullo, Kid! you're quite a
deserter! What have you been doing all the week?"
"Do you call him Kid?" Diana asked. "What a capital name for him!"
"He has been 'The Kid' almost ever since he came to this district."
"It pays," remarked Stanley jocularly; "they give me sugar."
"And he lives with The Bear; how comical! Instead of the lion lying
down with the lamb, in Rhodesia you have The Kid feeding with The
Bear."
"Who is The Bear?" Ailsa Grenville asked, from the packing-case
cupboard, where she was reaching down cups and saucers.
"Need you ask?" queried Diana. "Doesn't Major Carew ever growl when he
is here?"
Ailsa looked much amused. "Not exactly," she said; "but I admit
sometimes he rolls himself up into a ball, so to speak, and relapses
into a sort of winter sleep."
"I hope you prod him," said Diana.
"Billy wouldn't let me," glancing affectionately at her husband.
"There is only one Major Carew for him."
"Still, it might do him good. We prodded him last night, didn't we?"
addressing Stanley. "We went right into his den, and gave him a good
baiting, while we smoked his new Abdullah cigarettes," and she smiled
gleefully at the remembrance of the stern soldier, in an astonishingly
sociable mood for him, humorously parrying her chaff. "You know," she
ran on, "he simply hated our coming. I almost wonder he didn't dig
impassable trenches across the road, or fortify himself in the
Acropolis Hill. Anyone might have thought we were the bears, and he
the woman."
"I expect he was afraid of your charms," said Grenville smilingly. "We
wilderness-dwellers have none of the townsmen's armour to withstand
fair women."
"Well, growling and scowling are very fair substitutes," quoth Diana;
"and, besides, he didn't even trouble to observe if we had charms. As
far as he decently could he looked the other way altogether."
While she chatted on, delighting the missionary and his wife with her
gaiety, Meryl sat in a low chair, and gazed through the doorway out
over the smiling country, much as Carew usually did.
"It must be very wonderful," she said at last, aroused by a
sympathetic question from Ailsa Grenville, "to live day after day with
such a scene as that in one's doorway."
"Yes," Ailsa told her. "The wonder never grows less, nor the mystery,
nor the beauty. Major Carew, when he is here, loves just to sit and
look at it; and so do I."
Diana, with the two men, had strolled outside; and Ailsa and Meryl sat
alone in the cool interior.