"Books and sculpture--they are good, but `has life nothing better to
give than these'?"
"I don't think so," I said firmly, but found myself adding a moment
later, "I am not sure."
He answered, "Africa will make you sure. She has a way of making it
worth one's while to stay with her. And if she loves you she will just
put you in bonds and keep you, whether you will or no."
"She can never do that to me," I said, almost vehemently. "I am too
_exigeante_, and I do not like bonds. Let us pray that she will not
love me." I essayed to laugh lightly, but my heart was beating in my
throat, and an unaccountable agitation shook me. It seemed ridiculous
to be so moved about nothing, sitting out there in the steaming sunshine
with all life smiling. We were both staring before us away across the
court and its players to the amethystine hills on the edge of the world.
He did not look at me, nor I at him, but in a low voice that none but I
could hear he said a strange thing:
"For your sake I could go back to prayers--but do not ask me to pray
that."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs Valetta came in to look at the mirror as I was hunting for
something for dinner.
"You needn't change," she said. "Just turn in the collar of your dress
and sling a fichu round your neck. I'll lend you one if you haven't got
one." She had something in her hand that looked like the tail of an old
ball-gown.
"Oh, no, thank you," I said fervently. "I have too much respect for a
good gown to treat it in that fashion."
I made haste to spread upon the bed a little black lace frock that I had
brought for ordinary home use to wear in the evenings. Judy strolled in
and gazed dejectedly at it.
"Every one will think it fearfully sidey of you to wear that," she said
at last, quite animatedly for her.
"Oh, but I am sidey," I announced, laughing. For some reason I did not
understand I felt as though I had a happy red robin in the place where
my heart used to be. But Judy and Mrs Valetta met my gaiety with
scowls. I tried to propitiate them, for I felt kindly disposed to all
the world.
"It is not really an evening gown, only a little demi-toilette--long
sleeves and a V; and I have nothing else. Still, I won't wear it if you
have any _real_ objection, Judy."
But already her interest in the matter was dead. As for Mrs Valetta,
she had left the room utterly sick of life. I hardly recognised her for
the same woman half an hour later, when I went in to dinner and found
her seated there,--in a chrysanthemum-chiffon gown covered with Indian
embroideries. Her corsage was composed of about three sequins, a piece
of chiffon the size of a handkerchief, and a large diamond brooch.
Annabel Cleeve and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, who were dining with us,
were also _en grande tenue_. My poor little black lace frock would have
looked quite dowdy amongst them if it had not happened to be of such a
distinguished cut. Even Judy had slung an evening gown of sorts upon
her languid bones.
Unfortunately, the meal was not in keeping with our brilliant toilettes.
The soup had a terrible flavour of tin, and was followed by
floppy-looking shoulder of mutton which had the appearance of having
been but recently slain. I remembered that I had seen Mafoota, the
cook, leading a forlorn, predestined-looking goat by its horn that
morning, and I could not but connect the two facts. The eyes of the
potatoes, huge and black, glared at us dully from their dish, and a
boiled ladybird reclined upon the infinitesimal helping of cabbage that
was apportioned to me. No fish, no entrees, no wines; mountains of
pumpkin. Every one except Anna Cleeve and I took a whiskey and soda,
and that may have been some help. For dessert some woolly pudding, made
of pale blue rice, with American canned peaches. I had eaten some
lovely peaches at the Cape, but it takes American enterprise to
penetrate into the wilds of Africa. Judy spake the thing that was when
she said she had no genius for entertaining. I made no bones about
bantering her on the subject.
"It is easy to see there is no man about the house, Judy. Such a
dazzling banquet could only be served at a hen-party."
"Nonsense," said she, smiling idly. "I have trained Dick to live the
simple life too. He doesn't care a scrap what he gets now. What is the
use of worrying about the menu? There is nothing to be got here in any
case except tinned things and goat."
"Yes, but they needn't taste of the tin. And goat should be disguised.
As it is I recognise this one. Hardly a decent interval has elapsed
since I met it walking with Mafoota."
They all laughed. There was something to be said for life in
Mashonaland. It certainly induced a sort of gay tolerance for general
discomfort. Mrs Skeffington-Smythe began to brag about a lovely goat
curry she had had for lunch the day before, that no one had been able to
tell from curried prawns.
"I daresay," said Judy; "but you and Anna have Mrs Brand's Adriana to
cook for you. I have no one but the boys, and you know what they are.
I've told them dozens of times about taking the eyes out of the
potatoes, but there you are--just look at them."
"They're looking at us," I objected.
"Why not have them roasted whole in their jackets?" suggested Mrs
Valetta. "They're much nicer that way, and it would obviate the peeling
difficulty."
"I never thought of it," said Judy, looking surprised. "As for supper
to-night, I haven't the faintest notion of what people are going to eat.
Let us hope they won't be hungry."
I reflected that if they had all dined as badly as we had they would be
ravenous, and for the honour of the house I said so with such delicacy
as I could command. But delicacy was wasted on my sister-in-law.
"It is no use their bringing sybaritic appetites here," she said.
"Cheese sandwiches and a whiskey and soda is the best I can do, and it
ought to be good enough for any one--unless you will undertake the menu
and serve something better, Deirdre."
"Will you let me?"
"Certainly, I give you _carte blanche_. Do anything you like, dear, and
begin on the coffee. Did any one ever taste such stuff as these boys
make?"
So I went out into the kitchen, which was really a back verandah closed
in with native matting, and was full of smoke and jabbering boys. The
utensils were all very inferior. The spout of the kettle was off, and
the water had to be boiled in a large iron pot, while the boys crowded
round me, staring solemnly and falling over each other and getting in
the way. But the quality of the coffee was good, and when at last the
water boiled I achieved. It took a long time, though, and while I was
busy I could hear the knocks at the front door and the laughter of new
arrivals. When I took in my coffee-pot the room was full of the smoke
of cigarettes, and everybody wanted to taste my brew. Afterwards they
raved about it, and complained bitterly that there was not enough to go
round. So I went back to make more, but this time I brewed it in a big
enamel jug. Just as I was dropping in a tiny pinch of salt to flavour
it and make all the grounds settle at the bottom, a shadow fell across
my hands, and looking up I found Anthony Kinsella leaning in the doorway
and observing me with the deepest interest.
"I think that is what you have done to me," he observed solemnly.
"What?" said I in astonishment.
"Put a pinch of salt on me."
Our eyes met, and we both burst into laughter.
"I don't think you are very tame," I said.
"Tame! This is the first _soiree_ I've been to in this country.
They're quite out of my line."
"I know what brought you to-night," I said.
"So do I," he answered swiftly, with that glance of his eyes that made
my lids fall.
My heart experienced an extraordinary contracted feeling, as though some
one had taken hold of it and was holding it tightly. Then I remembered
all the enigmatical sayings I had heard about this man, and his
dangerous attraction for women, and in a moment I recovered myself and
answered with a mocking smile:
"You have heard rumours of the great spread I am going to put before my
sister-in-law's guests to-night. It has got about what an excellent
cook I am."
He opened his lips, to make some further saying, but I gave him no time.
"Come and taste my Turkish coffee," I said, and walked out with my jug,
colliding with Mrs Valetta, who was evidently coming to look for us.
"You are wanted to play poker, Kim," said she curtly. "Do play with me;
you are always so lucky."
"Ah, but I am going to be _unlucky_ at cards in future," he oddly
answered as they followed me in.
I got more compliments for my coffee. Every one said it was delicious.
Greedy people asked for second and even third cups. Colonel Blow was
heard to state that he had never tasted anything like it since he was in
Paris a hundred years ago.
"That is just where I learned to make it," I said gaily. "In my
racketty student days in the _Quartier_."
Every one looked amazed and I suppose it was rather an amazing thing to
say.
"In your what days?" asked Miss Cleeve faintly.
And Mrs Valetta said in a curious voice: "Can you possibly mean the
Latin Quarter of Paris?"
"I can, indeed," quoth I affably. "I once had a studio there for six
months, and all the art students used to come in the evening and make
coffee and Welsh rarebit, and every delicious imaginable thing."
"My sister-in-law's guardian is an American artist with eccentric ideas
about educating girls to see every phase of life," said Judy in the
stuffiest, snuffiest kind of voice. "_Of course_, Deirdre had a
chaperon."
"Yes, and she was far more racketty than I," said I with malice
prepense. Elizabet von Stohl would have fallen down dead if she could
have heard herself so traduced! But I was feeling very much annoyed
with Judy for speaking in that way about dear Betty and her lovely
liberal ideas. The men for some reason or other thought my remark very
amusing, but the women all looked frightfully disdainful, except Mrs
Brand, who spoke one of her brief, eloquent sentences:
"It must have been rippin'."
There were peals of laughter, and I looked at her in astonishment, and
found that she had quite a friendly enthusiastic air.
"And so is this coffee rippin'," said Gerry Deshon. "You'll have to
give us all lessons, Miss Saurin, or we'll never dare ask you to
supper."
"Oh, that's nothing to what I can do," I bragged. "You should taste my
cup--and I'm a frightful dab at rum-punch." I had all the women very
cross by now, so I thought they might as well stay so. The men, on the
contrary, were as gay as larks at heaven's gate singing. "And I'm going
to give a _Quartier Latin_ supper to-night," I told them; "Welsh
rarebit, _les apotres sur les bicyclettes_, devilled eggs--"
"There are no materials in the house for all these things," protested
Judy crossly.
"Then we must commandeer them," said Major Kinsella. "We'll make up a
foraging party at once. Come on and open your _winkel_, Dennison.
Hunloke, buck up."
Tommy Dennison was the cheeky Oxford undergraduate whose father owned
about forty thousand acres somewhere in Scotland and one of the smartest
yachts to be seen at Cowes; but Tommy was a younger son and a black
sheep, so he kept a shop in Fort George with Hunloke, the long-nosed
barrister. They were always proclaiming bitterly that no one ever paid
their bills and that they should shortly go bust.
A small but select party of buccaneers was formed, including Mrs
Skeffington-Smythe, Mrs Brand, and myself. The others had their cards
already dealt and their half-crowns staked on the table, so they had to
continue the game whether they liked it or not. Anna Cleeve and Mrs
Valetta did not appear pleased, and Judy gave me a chaperony sort of
look of which I took not the slightest notice. She then remarked with
great point and significance that the night air was very dangerous. But
the others cried her down saying that it was balmy and healthy, and the
only air, in fact, that was any good at all. Mrs Brand said she would
chaperon me, but as soon as we got out of doors she went off with Gerry
Deshon. Some of the others ran ahead with Mr Hunloke to get the keys
of the shop, and I found myself walking alone with Anthony Kinsella.
It was a lovely night, full of a sort of veiled radiance, shed from a
deep purple sky embroidered with silver stars. Strange insects in the
grass were calling to each other shrilly, and heavy on the air hung the
divine odour of wild clematis of which almost every little house had a
drapery over walls or verandah.
Anthony Kinsella plucked a spray from a wall as we passed, and put it in
my hand without speaking, but our hands touched and I saw his intent
eyes for a moment. I fastened the flower into the front of my black
gown, and the scent of it will stay with me all my life. I suddenly
felt so happy I could have sung aloud. Africa seemed all at once to
have turned into a land of fair dreams, in which I was a happy wanderer,
travelling towards my heart's desire. I did not analyse my feelings nor
ask myself any questions. I only knew that my eyes were unsealed to the
beauty and mystery of life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a few moments we had reached the shop--a galvanised-iron building
with "Hunloke and Dennison" painted in huge black letters across its
roof. The others had already arrived with the keys, and we were
admitted into a perfect paradise of tinned goods. Candles were hastily
burst from their packets and stuck in lighted rows along the counter,
and the general public was invited by the owners of the shop to "pay
their money and take their choice." This, however, was a mere form of
speech. Apparently no one paid for anything in happy-go-lucky
Mashonaland.
Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was helped up on the counter and walked along
it, inspecting the things on the top shelves and handing them down. The
rest of us made dives at anything we liked the look of, and the _winkel_
of Messrs. Hunloke and Dennison resounded with shouts of glee and
triumph.
"Olives!"
"This lovely pink curly bacon--just the thing to make bicycles for my
apostles to ride on. _Banzai_!"
"Hooray! here are some anchovies!"
"Say! Six cans of oysters!" cried Mr Hunloke himself. "I didn't know
we had these left, Tommy. I'll shew you fellows how to make clam
chowder. I've _got_ to show you."
"Who says tinned pineapples?"
"Fids I gloat! _Sardines a l'tomate_. All we want now is the
toast--_that's_ easy!"
"You've still a case of Pommery-and-Greno left, Tommy, my man. Trot it
out!"
"Yes, and what about that Bass's ale you and Hunloke keep all to your
own cheek?"
"Oh, Miss Saurin, I've found some crystallised fruit! And hurrah!
here's a big bottle of eau-de-cologne!"
Every one howled with delight at this artless testimony from Mrs
Skeffington-Smythe that in her at least the legitimate business of
foraging for commissariat had become merged in the wild spirit of the
filibuster. Some one began to softly sing,--
"Loot! Loot! Loot!"
At last, after selecting about two waggon-loads of articles, including
champagne and claret for "cup," a large bottle of eau-de-cologne, a box
of toilette soap, and several strings of blue beads, we stood and gazed
with the eyes of conquerors upon the wondrous heaps. The question then
arose as to who was to carry these things to the theatre of war. There
was great argument about this. A peculiarity about African men is that
they have a great objection to carrying anything. They would far rather
argue about it for two hours and then spend another two looking for a
boy. Eventually three wild men engaged to find boys for the task.
"Yes! even if we have to pull them out of kingdom come," they averred.
The rest of us started for home. How it came about that Anthony
Kinsella and I were once more alone together I cannot tell. Mrs
Skeffington-Smythe disappeared into the moonlight with Mr Hunloke and
some others. Mrs Brand was ahead again with Gerry Deshon, though I
could not but observe that the direction of her march was not in the
direction of home. Her voice came floating back to me:
"Don't go in without me, will you? Remember that you are chaperoning
me."
"Will you mind if I call at the post-office?" asked my companion
suddenly, out of the silence that encompassed us. "I expect an
important wire from headquarters."
Of course I did not mind. I minded nothing but that this enchanted hour
must soon be over. Slowly we sauntered onwards through the silver
night, and came at last, however much we loitered, to the post-office.
It was closed, but a light shone in a window, and Major Kinsella rapped
and hailed the mad postmaster by name:
"Bleksley, hullo!" Instantly the window was opened, and the divine
performer upon banjos put out his blond rumpled head: "Wire come,
Bleksley?"
"Not yet, but the mails from Victoria are just in by runner. If you
could wait a few minutes until I unseal them and sort out the private
letters--"
Major Kinsella hesitated, looking at me.
"Of course--certainly wait," I said hastily. "I don't mind."
"Thank you," he said. "If it were my own business it could rip--but
it's the country's."
"I shan't be more than five or six minutes," said the postmaster.
"Would you like to go up into the watch-tower to wait?"
He handed out a key through the window. The watch-tower adjoined the
post-office, and had been built for the double purpose of overlooking
the prison-yard and for the wide outlook it afforded of the surrounding
native kraals. The view from there was notoriously charming, and I had
heard all about it from several people and been told that I should see
it by moonlight. This seemed to be a good opportunity.
"Will you come?" said Anthony Kinsella abruptly. "The view is supposed
to be very fine."
Mr Bleksley had already closed the window and returned to his work.
"On such a night as this it should be perfect," I said. So we climbed
the dark, steep stair together.
The instant we put our feet on the first step he took my hand which hung
at my side, interlacing his fingers through mine. Hands can tell each
other so much. I suddenly knew things I had never dreamed of before
with the feel of Anthony Kinsella's warm, strong hand clasping mine, and
from the close contact of his palm against mine some wonderful, strange
message flew up my arm to my heart and brain, flooding me with a
thrilling ecstasy I could hardly bear. When we reached the tower's top
I think we both knew all there was to say though no word had been
spoken. We leaned against the low enclosing walls and looked down upon
a land awash with silver moonlight and far-off ebony hills draped with
scarves of mist.
"Deirdre!"
He spoke my name with all the crake gone from his voice, and again it
was as if I heard the music of an old song I had known all my life. I
could not answer him. Faintness stole over me and a strange trembling
sweetness held me in thrall. My heart glowed like a red-hot coal with a
cool wind blowing on it.
"Deirdre!--what a name for a man's wife. Deirdre, I love you! I want
your heart and body and soul. Look at me, darling."
I turned to him, and our eyes met in a long glance. Then mine fell as
always before his, as if weighted with little heavy stones.
"Give me your soul, Deirdre," he said, and with my eyes still closed,
unhesitatingly, unswervingly, I put out my two hands and laid them in
his with all my heart and soul in them; and he kissed them, and my hair,
and my lips. He took me in his arms and kissed my eyes.
"I have loved you from the moment I first saw you," he said. "Haven't
you felt my kisses on your eyelids whenever I looked at you, Deirdre?"
So I knew at last what it was in his burning glance that had always
closed my eyes.
"You are like an exquisite flower," he muttered, "too beautiful to be
worn in my soiled heart. But I _will_ wear you," he fiercely added.
"`Who loves flowers loves sorrow.'" The old French proverb came
uncalled to my lips.
"You and I cannot love without sorrow," he said, branding the words on
my lips with his.
Ah! God knows I was all woman then, throbbing, aching woman in the arms
of the man I loved.
"Let me see your eyes," he said, and his voice thrilled like a violin
bow across the strings of my heart. "I shall go mad if you do not open
your eyes."
And I opened them to the beauty of his face.
Ah, yes, he was beautiful! He had the beauty of the gods. If I were
half so beautiful at that moment it was no wonder that his lips were
pale though they burnt like flame, that his hands shook and his voice
stammered.
"Speak to me!" he cried. "Say that you love me!"
"I think I have always loved you, Anthony--ever since that night I first
saw you, when you beguiled me with your sweet words to come to this
strange land. Yes, I know now it was for you I came across the sea--for
you--to you."
"Heart of my heart! For you I will go back to my boyhood's dreams--to
the old sweet creeds! I will wipe my life clean of sins, and make it
worth your beauty and purity--"
Ah! It is a most wonderful and exquisite thing to be alone in the
empty, silent, moonlit world with the man you love and who loves you.
But our gracious dream was soon interrupted. The postmaster called out
at the foot of the stairs, and we distinguished the approaching voices
of Mrs Brand and some others.
"Come, love," said Anthony to me simply and softly, and drew me down the
stairway. In the kindly darkness he kissed me again in a strong, sweet,
wonderful way, and for one more radiant moment I felt the almost
anguished joy--half terror and half exquisite peace--that comes to a
girl who, loving for the first time, finds herself in the arms of the
one right man in all the world for her.
"Say you love me," he passionately whispered, and I as passionately
whispered back:
"I love you--I love you. There is no one in the world like you."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I believe there is a search-party out for us," said Gerry Deshon as
soon as we came from the post-office. "We've spied about five couples
all diligently looking the other way."
"Any excuse to get out into the moonlight," laughed Anthony. He had his
careless-eyed, impassive mask on once more.
"And it is plain that some one has already begun to prepare the
banquet," cried Mr Hunloke. "I smell a most outrageous smell of Welsh
rarebit desecrating the night air."
I remember very little in detail of the rest of that enchanted night. I
know that every one was very gay and merry, and none more so than I,
with a heart singing like a bird in my breast. After scrambling in the
kitchen for hours, laughing, blacking our hands and smearing our
features, getting smoke in our eyes and ashes down our throats from
three large fires out of doors, a banquet was served in the preparing of
which at least fifty people had a hand and the like of which was never
seen before or since in Mashonaland. The odour thereof permeated to
every hut and home and lured men from their beds. People I had never
seen before arrived upon the scene and joined in the proceedings--even
the frumps and dowds and the business-like men. We were all--
"Glad together in gladsome mood
And joyful in joyous lustre."
Anthony brewed a bowl of punch flavoured with blue beads that ravished
the hearts of all men who tasted it; and Gerry Deshon brewed an
opposition bowl which he called "potheen" and engaged attention to by
monotonously beating a kaffir tom-tom over it, the sound of which
brought the remaining stragglers into camp.
By twelve o'clock, when the moon was low in the heavens but the
campfires blazed high, almost every one in the town was seated round the
white cloths spread upon the stubbly grass. I recognised the
postmaster's beautifully embroidered tea-cloth among the rest. No one
gave a thought to grass-ticks or mosquitoes. How should they when the
feast was eaten to the strains of the postmaster's banjo and his
charming tenor voice serenading us with some of the wild, sweet melodies
of Ireland to which Moore has put words. But of course, with the innate
melancholy of the Celt, he could not refrain from tempering our
merriment with woe, and at our blithest he suddenly subdued us with the
sad fierce Song of Fionnuala:
"Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water.
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While murmuring mournfully Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night stars the tale of her woes.
"When shall the swan her death-song singing
Sleep with wings in darkness furled?
When will Heaven its sweet bell ringing
Call my spirit from this stormy world?"
Did the Irish gift of foresight descend for a moment upon that one of
Ireland's sons, I wonder? For it was strange, looking back long after,
to reflect that never before had little Fort George indulged in such a
gay and merry revel, nor ever did again. That was her swan-song.
Afterwards she slept, with wings in darkness furled.
During the evening Anthony and I were side by side once more, and under
cover of all the jesting and laughter around us we added another brief
little chapter to the history of our love. The firelight was glinting
on the points of blue in his ears, and impulsively I put up a finger and
touched one of them.
"Why do you wear them?"
He looked steadily into the fire and did not answer at once.
"If you object to them I will not wear them any longer," he said at
last. But there was a note in his voice that chilled my heart.
"Why did you ever wear them?" I asked, and almost choked on the words
remembering what Mrs Valetta had said, "Is it true that some woman put
them there?"
He turned and faced me quickly, looking into mine with those eyes of his
which I knew could not lie.
"Not a woman, Deirdre, a girl--a little girl of ten. My sister put them
in for a whim a few days before she died--and they've been there ever
since. You are the only woman in the world I would take them out for."
I remembered how they said he had almost killed a man for jeering at
them, how much chaff he had stood from his friends on the subject. I
knew that his sister had been dear to him.
"No, no," I cried swiftly. "You must never take them out. Wear them
always. I love them. To me they seem part of you."
His passionate glance made me almost afraid as he whispered back under
cover of the chatter and laughter around us:
"You shall kiss them in for me, my heart, and they shall never leave me
again until I die." When I looked away from him it was to see Maurice
Stair's pale, handsome face opposite, staring before him with moody
eyes.
My last recollection before we went indoors, after good-nights all round
and many handshakings, was the sight of Tommy Dennison seated at the
summit of the glorified tea-house (which was Anthony Kinsella's hut)
performing on the flute in a most subtle manner while the mad Irishman,
once more happy, sang:
"Oh, did you ne'er hear of the Blarney?
That's found near the banks of Killarney."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alone in my room at last, I threw myself down on my knees and thanked
God in broken words for my happiness. Joy enfolded my spirit like a
misty veil of happiness through which the future was touched with the
light of the eternal hills. With the rosary between my fingers and the
lovely Latin words of the Angelical Salutation on my lips, I thought of
my mother too and longed passionately for her to know of the wonderful
thing that had come to me, so that even in my prayers my thoughts flew
out from me across the rolling spaces of stars to the still place of
peace where my faith told me her soul rested, waiting; and when at last
I rose from my knees it was with a strange feeling that she _knew_, that
her mother-spirit was with me, enfolding me, rejoicing with me that all
was well, that not tragedy but wonderful, undreamed-of happiness had
come to her Deirdre for whom she had feared so much.
Afterwards I thought to fall swiftly into the waves of silence and
oblivion with my dream in my heart. But late as it was, Judy, who had
just come in, lingered before the mirror brushing her hair, and she
_would_ talk. She had gone into Mrs Valetta's hut and stayed for quite
an hour, and now in her pink dressing-gown, her fair hair down her back,
she was full of little endless languid words that had no meaning for me
wrapped in my new found happiness. I closed my eyes and strove to sleep
in spite of her, but she presently said something that dragged me back
from sleep and in one moment blurred out the radiance of my dream.
"And I want to warn you of one thing, Deirdre. Don't be beguiled into a
flirtation with Anthony Kinsella. He's the most dangerous man in the
country."
After an ice-cold moment I answered her in a voice that sounded to me
like some one else's.
"What do you mean, Judy? Why do you say that to me?"
She was plaiting her hair then, and had a hairpin between her lips so
that her voice was a little indistinct, but her words fell like gunshots
into my ears.
"Well, you seemed to like him, rather. You were a good deal together
this evening, weren't you? Of course I know that you are well able to
take care of yourself, but a flirtation with Tony Kinsella should not be
embarked upon even by the most experienced hand. For one thing, he is
married."
My heart stopped beating in my breast, and a pain that I thought would
have choked me shot up from it to my throat. For a little time I was in
such purely physical pain that I believed I was dying. My eyes blurred
over, and dimly as through a great darkness I saw Judy's face reflected
in the glass, the gleam of her rings as her fingers moved in and out of
her fair pale hair, while her voice went monotonously, relentlessly on.
"I always knew there was _something_, but until Mrs Valetta told me
to-night I did not know what it was. She has known him for years in
Kimberley and at the Cape. It appears that when he was twenty-five (a
good many years ago I should say) he married a very lovely girl
belonging to an old Cape family--she and Mrs Valetta were at school
together. He was wildly in love with his wife, but she like most Cape
girls was a desperate flirt, and no sooner were they married than she
began indulging in perhaps harmless flirtations, but extremely
indiscreet ones, considering whom she had married. They began to be
unhappy, and then suddenly came an awful climax when he almost killed
some soldier man in Cape Town (the man's recovery was a miracle) and
then separated from his wife, but first of all he sent her to England,
and insisted on her staying there. He gave her a large income but he
has never lived with her since, and she has never been out here, though
every one knows she is still alive. The worst feature of the business
is the way he has always carried on intrigues with women ever since,
nearly always married women. His method is peculiar. He commences a
friendship with a woman, becomes her devoted slave, and gets her well
talked about, and when she is wildly in love with him and ready to throw
her bonnet over the windmill he calmly backs out, tells the woman it was
her friendship he wanted, not her love, and walks off. Did you ever
hear of anything so horrible? Evidently the idea is to get revenge on
all women for his own wife's infidelities, but it seems incredibly
brutal, doesn't it?"
"I don't believe a word of it," I said, suffocating with pain and anger
and distress. "He is incapable of such--" I sank among my pillows again
but I could not shut out Judy's cruel words.
"I know--I felt like that too--he is so charming, and has such nice
eyes. It is hard to believe he could be such a brute--but you would
have had to believe Nonie Valetta to-night. It is clear that she is one
of his victims. Of course her husband is a dreadful cad and they say
kicks her, and that no doubt makes her the bitter and wretched woman she
is, but every one knows she is desperate about Kinsella. She as good as
admitted it to-night though she knows how I detest that kind of thing
and that she would get no sympathy--but she told me, looking as white as
a ghost, that I ought to warn you as she had warned Anna Cleeve some
months ago, that he is married. It was really too bad of him to start a
flirtation with Anna Cleeve. They were always riding together and so on
and every one thought it would come to an engagement, and then suddenly
the whole thing came to a full stop, and now they never speak to each
other. The only people who knew the real reason were he and Anna
Cleeve, but now it appears that Mrs Valetta told Anna that he was a
married man and that she should tax him with it, and Anna did. She
asked him point blank and instead of answering he laughed in her face
and said, `It is women like you and Mrs Valetta who kick a man's soul
into hell.' Then he walked off and has never spoken to her since. One
would think that her brother would have risen in arms against such
treatment, but no! The curious thing is that men are always ready to
believe in Tony Kinsella. Anna Cleeve is practically engaged to Herbert
Stanfield now, a Salisbury man, but she is frightfully unhappy, and
every one says it was nothing but pique made her do it. Mr Stanfield
is very nice but Tony Kinsella would spoil any woman's taste for a
merely nice man--he is so alive and vivid and extraordinarily bigger
than most men about--don't you think so? Anyway, I thought I'd just
warn you, dear. As I told Mrs Valetta, I was sure there was not the
slightest necessity--that you've had heaps of good offers and threw over
one of the best matches in England because you were so hard to please
(too hard, I think, but that's neither here nor there). Anyway, I let
her know that it was very unlikely you would consider any man out here
good enough for you. All the same, I know how fascinating Anthony
Kinsella is and it is just as well that you should know these things--so
there you are. And now good-night. I'm so dead tired, aren't you?
What a crazy night!"
A crazy night indeed! I don't know how I lived through what was left of
it. My body lay still and anguished, but my mind wandered in a
wilderness of wretchedness and misery where it sometimes seemed no gleam
of hope or happiness could ever penetrate again. I had said that I
believed no word of it all, but left alone with Judy's haunting tale
ringing in my head, how was it possible to dismiss the whole thing as a
tissue of lies from beginning to end? Facts, such as his marriage, must
be true. No woman would invent a thing that could be so easily
disproved. He must have been married at some time (oh, God! that
thought was hard to bear even if she had died since). If she hadn't
died--ah! that was too terrible to think of. Then what of Anna Cleeve?
and Mrs Valetta? Blind as I wished to be I knew there was some truth
in both these tales. Deaf as I had tried to be, had I not heard
everywhere round me hints of his intimacies with women? Had he not said
to me with exceeding bitterness: "You will hear my name blown back upon
the breeze of fame--of a kind"? And then: "You cannot love me without
sorrow, Deirdre."
Oh! was it all true? Could it be true? Darkness engulfed me. I know
not how I passed the terrible year-long hours. But at last my little
silver travelling-clock struck five and I found myself staring at the
first red stripes of dawn upon the walls.