They sat talking for close on two hours, and at the end of that time
April rose with a laugh on her lips and many a light and airy reason
why she could not stay. It was too hot, she must rest a little, she
had unpacking to do. Even after rising from her chair she lingered as
if regretful to go, but they could not persuade her to stay and have
tea with them. Presently she sauntered off slowly, leaving a promise
that she would dine with them that evening. She did not know why she
promised. As she walked away, sauntering, because her feet seemed as
lead-laden as her heart, she told herself that it would be better to go
and dine with the sharks in Table Bay than sit down again with Ronald
Kenna. In her room she lay exhausted and very still for a long time,
with the feeling that she had escaped from a red-hot gridiron. She
looked in her mirror on entering, expecting to see a vision of Medusa,
hair hanging in streaks, eyes distraught, and deep ruts in the cheeks;
but her face was charming and composed, and a fixed smile curved her
mouth. She shuddered at her own image.
"Lies deform and obscure the soul," she thought, "yet my face bears no
mark of the lies I have told this afternoon, nor the hell my spirit has
passed through!"
Only when she removed her hat something strange arrested her attention,
something that might have been a feather or a flake of snow lying on
her luminous black hair just where it grew low in a widow's peak at the
centre of her forehead. She made to brush it lightly away, but it
stayed, for it was not a feather at all, but a lock of her own hair
that had turned white. A little gift from Ronald Kenna!
He had played with her as a cat plays with a mouse before killing it.
True, he had not killed her, nor (which would have been the same thing)
exposed her mercilessly before Vereker Sarle's eyes. But he had made
her pay for his clemency. Probably the cleverness with which she
slipped out of the corners into which she was hedged, her skill in
darting from under his menacing paw, roused his admiration as well as
his sporting instinct. It must have been a great game for him, but
hers were the breathless emotions of the helpless mouse whose heart
goes pit-a-pat in the fear of being gobbled up the next moment.
It was all very subtle. Sarle never suspected what was going on, so
cool and sweet she looked under her shady hat, so unfailing was her
composure. He was accustomed to the dry and biting flavour of Kenna's
speech, and paid no great heed to it. He believed himself listening to
the witty reminiscences of two people with many friends and interests
in common, and nothing in the girl's manner as she lied and fenced and
swiftly covered up mistakes with jests and laughter betrayed the agony
of baiting she was enduring. Kenna was a friend he would have trusted
with everything he had in the world; but he was aware of a twist in
that friend's nature which made him look at women with sardonic eyes.
It had not always been so. Some woman had given that cruel twist to a
loyal and trusting nature; some loved hand had dealt the wound that
festered in Ronald Kenna's heart; and Sarle, because he guessed this,
forgave his friend much. But he would never have forgiven had he known
what was passing there under his very eyes. The woman he loved was on
the rack, and he never guessed it because she smiled instead of crying
out.
And it was all to suffer again that evening. April knew that, as she
dressed herself carefully for dinner. There was no mistaking Kenna's
pressing request that they should be allowed to come to her table.
Sarle had not had time to ask for himself alone. Kenna had forestalled
him, and there was double craft in the action: he meant to keep his
eye, or rather his claw, on her, while preventing her from being alone
with Sarle. If she was in the fray to protect Sarle from the pain of
finding her out, he was in it to protect Sarle from her. The situation
might have been funny if it had not been grim. She could have laughed
at it but for her fear of Kenna, but for an old man's pain and misery,
but that the whole miserable structure of deceit rested on a girl's
drowned body.
She put on a black gown. It seemed only fitting to absent herself
awhile from the felicity of colour. Besides, all her joy in clothes
had gone. How gladly would she now have donned her own shabby
garments, if with them could have returned the old peace of mind! But
even the plain little demi-toilette of black chiffon was peerlessly
cut, and her whiteness glowed like a pearl through its filmy darkness.
There was no way of dressing her hair that would hide the white feather
on her forehead, and after trying once or twice she left it. It looked
very remarkable, that touch of age above her young, flower-like face.
She could not altogether hate it, for it was a scar won bravely enough,
and in desperate battle. Africa had not taken long to put its mark on
her!
The men were waiting for her in the lounge; Sarle looking radiantly
happy because he was sure of the society of the two people he cared for
most in the world; Kenna with a fresh device to try her composure.
"I want to see if you can remember the ingredients of that cocktail I
introduced to you at the 'Carlton' on a certain memorable evening when
we escaped from Aunt Grizel," he said gaily. She looked at him
reflectively. "As I've just been telling Sarle, you learned the recipe
by heart, and swore that from henceforth you would use no other."
"Ah, yes," she drawled slowly. "But you take no account of time and my
'Winter-garment of Repentance.' I am a very different girl to the one
you knew two years ago."
"I realize that, of course." He grinned with delight at her point. It
seemed to him possible that the evening might be even more entertaining
than the afternoon.
"_This_ girl never drinks cocktails," she finished quaintly, and he
liked her more and more.
Many glances followed them as they passed down the long room, full of
rose-shaded candles and the heavy scent of flowers. Pretty women are
not scarce in Cape Town, especially at the season when all Johannesburg
crowds to the sea, but there was a haunting, almost tragic loveliness
about April that night that set her apart from the other women, and
drew every eye. Sarle felt his pulses thrill with the pride that stirs
every man when the seal of public admiration is set upon the woman he
loves. As he looked at her across the table he suddenly recalled some
little verses he had found scrawled in Kenna's writing on an old book
once when they were away together on the veld:
My love she is a lady fair,
A lady fair and fine;
She is to eat the rarest meat
And drink the reddest wine.
Her jewelled foot shall tread the ground
Like a feather on the air;
Oh! and brighter than the sunset
The frocks my love shall wear!
If she be loyal men shall know
What beauty gilds my pride;
If she be false the more glad I,
For the world is always wide.
Poor Kenna! She had been false: that was why he had sought the wide
world of the veld and renounced women. Sarle, certain of the innate
truth and loyalty of the girl opposite him as of her pearl-like outer
beauty, could pity his friend's fate from the bottom of his soul. But
being a man, he did not linger too long with pity; hope is always a
pleasanter companion, and hope was burning in him like a blue flame:
the hope that within an hour or two he would hold this radiant girl in
his arms and touch her lips. He thought of the garden outside, full of
shadows and scented starlight, and looking at the curve of her lips,
his eyes darkened, and strange bells rang in his ears. She had eluded
him for many nights, although she knew he loved her. He had kissed her
fingers and the palm of her hand, but tonight out in the starlit garden
he meant to kiss her lips. The resolve was iron in him. He hardly
heard what the other two were saying. He was living in a world of his
own. April, weary of Kenna's cruel heckling, turned to him for a
moment's relief, and what she saw in his eyes was wine and oil for her
weariness, but it made her afraid, not only because of the perilous
longing in her to give him all he asked, but because Kenna sat alert as
a lynx for even a smile she might cast that way. It was very certain
that no opportunity would be given them for being a moment together;
and divining something of Sarle's resolute temper, she could not help
miserably wondering what would happen when it came to a tussle of will
between the two men.
However, even the careful plans of first-class lynxes go awry
sometimes. A waiter came to the table to say that Kenna was wanted on
the telephone.
"Tell them I'm engaged," was the curt answer.
"It's his Honour Judge Byng, sir," said the waiter in an awed manner,
"and I have already told him you were at dinner. He says it is most
important."
Kenna glared at the man, then at his companions. The latter appeared
placidly indifferent. April sipped her wine, and her eyes roamed round
the room whilst she exchanged idle talk with Sarle. But the moment
Kenna's back was turned indifference fell from them; they looked at
each other eagerly like two school-children in a hurry to take
advantage of the teacher's absence.
"Darn him!" muttered Sarle. "I wish Byng would keep him all night."
"He will be back directly," she said breathlessly. Sarle glanced at
the plates. They were only at the fish.
"He's got to finish his dinner, I suppose," he said grudgingly. "But
can't we escape afterwards? I want to show you the garden."
"He's sure to stay with us," she answered tragically.
"Oh--but to Halifax with him!" began Sarle.
"I know, but we mustn't offend him," she implored hastily. "He . . .
he's such a good fellow."
"Of course I realize he is an old friend of yours, and likes to be with
you, and all that," Sarle conceded. "But so do I. I want to show you
the garden . . . by myself." He looked pleadingly and intently into
her eyes until her lids fell and a soft flush suffused her cheeks. His
glance drank in every detail of her fresh, sweet beauty.
"What's that funny little patch of white on your hair?" he asked
suddenly. "I have been puzzling about it all the evening. Is it a new
fashion?" She shook her head.
"He's coming back." From where she sat she could see Kenna the moment
he entered the room.
"Promise you will come to the garden," he urged.
"Yes," she said softly.
"No matter how long it takes to get rid of him?"
"Yes."
"Even if we have to pretend to say good-night? . . . I shall be
waiting for you . . . you'll come?" She nodded; there was no time for
more. Kenna was upon them, very cross at having his dinner
interrupted, and with an eye cocked searchingly upon April. But
neither she nor Sarle gave any sign of what had passed.
Later, when they were round their coffee in the lounge, the hall-porter
brought her some letters on a salver. She saw Kenna looking at her
satirically as she examined the superscriptions. All were addressed to
Lady Diana Vernilands, and the problem of what she was to do about
letters was one not yet considered.
"Don't let me keep you from your interesting correspondence," he
remarked, and April started, to find that they were alone. Sarle had
gone across to Leon to get some cigars.
"Oh, there's nothing that can't wait," she said hastily, and pushed
them into her hand-bag.
"I agree"--he assumed a bright, conversational air--"that some things
are even more interesting for being waited for; the explanation of your
conduct, for instance!"
She looked at him steadily, though her heart was beating rapidly, for
this moment had come upon her with sudden unexpectedness.
"You appear to suffer from curiosity?"
"Don't call it suffering." His tone was suave. "I am enjoying myself
immensely."
"I shall try not to do anything to interfere with your amusement," she
remarked, after a pause.
"That will be kind. The situation piques me. I should like to watch
it to a finish without contributing to the _denouement_; unless"--he
looked at her significantly--"I am obliged to."
"I cannot believe anything or any one could oblige you to be
disagreeable, Sir Ronald," she jeered softly. He meditated with an air
of gravity.
"There _are_ one or two things, though; friendship, for instance--I
would do quite disagreeable things for the sake of a friend." She was
silent.
"I might even vex a woman I admire as much as I do you, to save a
friend from disaster."
Thus they sparred, the attention of each fixed on Sarle, so gay and
debonair, buying cigars within a stone's throw of them. Having
finished with Leon, he attempted to rejoin them, but the lounge was
crowded, and at every few steps some old friend entangled him.
"There is nothing much to admire about me." In spite of herself a note
of desolation crept into her voice. Kenna looked at her in surprise.
This was a new side to the adventuress!
"_Au contraire_. Apart from the inestimable gifts of youth and beauty
the gods have bestowed, you possess a quality that would draw
admiration from the most unwilling--courage."
She bowed mockingly. Sarle was escaping from his many friends at last
and returning. Kenna rapped out what he had to say sharply, though his
voice was low.
"He is a good fellow, and I do not care to give him pain--unless you
force me to."
He searched her face keenly, but found no trace there of anything
except a courteous interest in his conversation. She did not mean him
to guess how much Vereker Sarle's happiness meant to her.
"Anything else?" she dared him.
"Well, of course I should like to know where the real Lady Diana is,"
he said carelessly. That gave her a bad moment. Mercifully, the
waiter created a diversion by knocking a coffee-cup over as he removed
the tray, and Sarle, returning, had some news for Kenna of a mutual
friend's success in some political campaign. This gave her a short
space in which to recover. But she was badly shaken, and wondered
desperately how she was going to get through the rest of the evening if
Kenna clung. They sat talking in a desultory fashion, each restlessly
watching the others. There was a clatter of conversation about them,
and in the adjoining drawing-room a piano and violins had begun to
play. The air was warm and heavy. For some reason April could not
fathom the French windows had been closed, and there was a swishing,
seething sound outside, as though the sea was rushing in tides through
the garden. She felt curiously unstrung. It was not only the nervous
effect of having these two men so intent upon her every word and
movement, but there was something extraordinarily disturbing in the
atmospheric conditions that made the palms of her hands ache and her
scalp prickle as from a thousand tiny thorns.
"I don't think I can bear this place much longer," she said suddenly,
even to herself unexpectedly. "Wouldn't it be cooler out where we were
sitting this afternoon?"
"I think so," said Sarle briskly. "Besides I want to show you the
garden." He rose, but Kenna rose too.
"My dear fellow," he expostulated gently, "don't you realize there is a
south-easter blowing? We can't subject Lady Di to the curse of the
Cape tonight. It always affects new-comers most disagreeably. In
fact, I think she is suffering from it already."
"Is that what is making me prickle all over and feel as though I want
to commit murder?" she inquired, with rather a tremulous smile. "What
is this new African horror?"
"Only our Cape 'mistral.'" Sarle looked at her anxiously. "It's
blowing a bit hard in the trees outside, but----"
"I thought that was the sea. If it's only the wind I don't mind." She
rose, half hesitating. "I love wind."
"I think it would be very unwise of you to go," said Kenna quietly.
Sarle thought him infernally interfering, though he heard nothing in
the words but friendly counsel. To April the remark contained a
threat, and she gave way with as good a grace as she might, holding out
her hand to say good-night to them.
"Perhaps I had better postpone acquaintance with your curse as long as
possible." The words were for Kenna, her smile for Sarle.
"I will see you to the lift," the latter said. Kenna could hardly
offer to come too, but as it was only just across the lounge to the
hall, and within range of his eye, perhaps he thought it did not
matter. He could not know that Sarle, sauntering with a careless air
beside her, was saying very softly and only for her ear:
"It is quite early. If instead of taking the lift again you came down
the main staircase, you would find a door almost opposite, leading into
the garden. I think you promised?"
His voice was very pleading. She did not answer, nor even turn his
way. But once safely in the lift, out of the range of Kenna's gimlet
eyes, over the shoulders of the stunted brown lift-boy she let her
glance rest in his, and so told him that he would have his wish.
There must have been some witchery in that south-east wind. She knew
it was madness to go, that she was only entangling herself more closely
in a mesh which could not be unravelled for many days. Yet within half
an hour she was out there in the darkness, with the wind tearing at her
hair and flickering her cloak about her like a silken sail. When she
closed the door behind her and went forward it was like plunging into
an unknown purple pool, full of dark objects swaying and swimming
beside her in the fleeting darkness. Tendrils of flowering plants
caught at her with twining fingers. A heavily scented waxen flower,
pallid as the face of a lost soul, stooped and kissed her from a
balcony as she passed. The young trees were like slim girls bowing to
each other with fantastic grace; the big trees stood together "terrible
as an army with banners," raging furiously in an uproar like the
banging of a thousand breakers upon a brazen beach. The sky was full
of wrack, with a snatch of moon flying across it, and a scattering of
lost stars.
She felt more alive and vital than ever in her life before. The
clamour of the storm seemed to be in her veins as well as in her ears.
She was glad with a wild, exultant happiness of which she had never
dreamed, when she found herself snatched by strong arms and held close,
close. The maelstrom whirled about her, but she was clasped safe in a
sheltered place. Sarle kissed her with long, silent kisses. There was
no need for words, their lips told the tale to each other. It seemed
to her that her nature expanded into the vastness of the sea and the
wind and the stars, and became part with them. . . . But all the while
she was conscious of being just a slight, trembling girl held close
against a man's heart--the right man, and the right heart! She had
come across the sea to find him, and Africa had given them to each
other. She lost count of time and place and terror. The burden of her
trouble mercifully left her. She remembered only that she and Vereker
Sarle loved each other and were here alone together in this
wind-wracked wilderness of perfumed darkness and mystery. Her ears and
mind were closed to everything but his whispering words:
"My darling, my darling . . . I have waited for you all my life . . .
women have been nothing to me because I knew you were somewhere in the
world. I have crossed the veld and the seas a thousand times looking
for you, and have found you at last! I will never let you go."
He kissed her throat and her eyes. More than ever her whiteness shone
in the gloom with the luminousness of a pearl.
"Your beauty makes me tremble," he whispered in her hair. "Darling,
say that you love me and will give yourself to me for ever."
"I love you, Vereker. . . ."
"Call me Kerry."
"I love you, Kerry. I give myself to you."
She rejoiced in her beauty, because it was a precious gift to him.
"You don't know what you mean to me, Diana--a star dropped out of
heaven; the pure air of the veld I love; white lilies growing on a
mountain top. Thank God you are all these things without any darkness
in you anywhere. It is the crown of a man's life to love a woman like
you."
"Let me go, Kerry," she said. "It is late. I must go."
He did not notice that her voice was broken with tears, for the wind
swept her words up to the trees and the boiling wrack of clouds beyond.
But he knew that it was time for her to go. That wild pool of love and
wind and stars was too sweet and dangerous a place for lovers to linger
in. He wrapped her cloak about her and sheltered her back to the door
from which she had emerged.
"Tomorrow morning . . . I shall be waiting for you in the lounge. We
will settle then how soon you will give yourself to me--it must be very
soon, darling. I am forty-four, and can't wait a moment."
The light from the door fell on his face and showed it gay as a boy's.
Her face was hidden, or he must have, recognized the misery stamped
upon it.
* * * * * *
In the morning light it seemed to her that the finger of snow on her
hair had broadened a little. It was five o'clock of an ice-green dawn,
with the mountain like an ashen wraith outside, and the wind still
raging. South-easters last for three days, Kenna had said, and she
shuddered to look at that unseen power whipping the leaves from the
trees, beating down the beauty of the garden, tearing the mists from
the mountain's side, only to pile them higher upon the summit. It took
courage to go out in that wind, but it took greater courage to stay and
meet Vereker Sarle. So she was dressed and hatted, with a small
suit-case in her hand, and starting on a journey to the Paarl. She did
not know what "the Paarl" was, nor where! Her first introduction to
that strange name was at midnight, when she found it on one of the
letters addressed to Diana. All the other letters were of no
consequence, but the Paarl letter seemed to solve for her the pressing
and immediate problem of how to escape from the terror of exposure by
Kenna before the loved eyes of Sarle. It was from the parson's
daughter, that eccentric painter who lived somewhere on the veld, and
whose home was to have been Diana's destination. "Clive Connal" she
signed herself, and said she hoped Diana would take the morning train,
as it was the coolest one to travel by, and arrive at the Paarl by
8.30, where a mule-cart would be waiting to take her to Ho-la-le-la.[1]
So April meant to follow instructions and trust to luck to see her
through. Whatever happened, it could not be more terrible than to read
disgust and disillusion in Vereker Sarle's eyes.
She stole down the stairs like a shadow, and found a sleepy clerk in
the booking-office. It was simple to explain to him that she was going
away for a few days, but wished her room kept on, and everything left
as it was. She would send a wire to say at what date she would be
returning. There was no difficulty about the bill, for, fortunately,
Bellew had supplied her with plenty of money, saying it was Diana's,
and that she would have wished it to be used. It was too early for a
taxi to be got, even by telephoning, but the porter caught a stray
rickshaw that chanced to be passing, and April had her first experience
of flying downhill behind a muscular black man with feathers in his
hair and bangles on his feet. Before she reached the station her veil
and hair were in streamers, and her scalp was almost torn from her
head, but the _serpent jaune_ which had gnawed her vitals all night had
ceased from troubling, and joy of living glowed in her once more. She
could not help it; there was something in the air and the wind and the
blaze of Africa that made for life, and thrust out despair. It swept
away misery as the south-easter had swept the skies, leaving them blue
and clear as a flawless turquoise.
She caught her train, and in fate's good hour reached the Paarl, which
proved to be a town of one long street, decked with stately oaks, and
mellowed old Dutch homes. The mule-cart was waiting for her, and on
the driver's seat a woman with the austere features and blue, pure,
visionary eyes of Galahad, the stainless knight. But she was dressed
in breeches and a slouch hat, a cigarette hung from the corner of her
mouth, and she beckoned April gladsomely with an immense cowthong whip.
"Come on! I was afraid you'd shirk the early train, but I see you're
the stuff. Hop in!"
April did her best, but hopping into a Cape cart that has both steps
missing takes some practice. The mules did most of the hopping; she
scrambled, climbed, sprawled, and sprained herself all over before she
reached the vacant seat, already encumbered with many parcels. With a
blithe crack of the whip and a string of strange words flung like a
challenge at her mules, Miss Connal got under way.
The farm was six miles off, but ere they had gone two April knew the
painter as well as if they had been twin sisters. Clive Connal hadn't
a secret or a shilling she would not share with the whole world. She
used the vocabulary of a horse-dealer and the slang of a schoolboy, but
her mind was as fragrant as a field that the Lord hath blessed, and her
heart was the heart of a child. It was shameful to deceive such a
creature, and April's nature revolted from the act. Before they
reached the farm she had confessed her identity--explaining how the
change had come about, and why it was important to go on with the
deception. Too much explanation was not necessary with a person of
Clive's wide understanding. No vagaries of behaviour seemed to shock
or astonish her large human soul. She merely, during the relation of
Diana's tragedy, muttered once or twice to herself:
"The poor thing! Oh! the poor thing!" and looked at April as though
she too were "a poor thing," instead of a fraud and an adventuress to
be abjured and cast out. For the first time since her mother's death
the girl felt herself sheltering in the warmth of womanly sympathy, and
the comfort of it was very sweet.
"Don't worry too much," said Clive cheerfully.
"_Tout s'arrange_: that's my motto. Everything comes straight if you
leave it alone."
A cheerful motto indeed, and one seeming to fit well with the picture
of the old farmhouse lying in the morning sunshine. Low-roofed and
white-walled, it was tucked under the shelter of the Qua-Qua mountains,
with apricot orchards stretching away on either side. Six immense oaks
spread their untrimmed branches above the high stoep, and before the
house, where patches of yellow-green grass grew ragged as a vagabond's
hair, a Kerry cow was pegged out and half a dozen black babies
disported themselves amongst the acorns. Dozens of old paraffin tins
stained with rust, and sawed-off barrels bulging asunder lined the edge
of the stoep, all filled with geraniums, begonias, cacti, red lilies,
and feathery bamboos. Every plant had a flower, and every flower was a
brilliant, vital thing. Other decorations were a chopping-block, an
oak chest, blistered and curled by the sun, several wooden beds with
the bedding rolled up on them, and two women, who smiled a welcome.
These were Ghostie, and _belle_ Helene--the only names April ever knew
them by.
"Welcome to the home for derelicts, broken china, and old crocks," they
said. "You may think you are none of these things, but there must be
something the matter with you or you wouldn't be here."
"Too true!" thought April, but smilingly answered, "There doesn't seem
much wrong with you!"
"Oh, there is, though. Ghostie is a journalist, recovering from having
the soul trampled out of her by Johannesburg Jews. I am a singer with
a sore throat and a chronic pain in my right kidney that I am trying to
wash away with the juice of Clive's apricots and the milk from Clive's
cows."
"Nuff sed," interposed Clive. "Let's think about some grub. I've
brought back sausages for breakfast."
Meekie, the mother of the black babies, had fetched in the parcels from
the cart, and already there was a fizzling sound in the kitchen. The
rest of the household proudly conducted April to the guest-chamber.
There was nothing in it except a packing-case and a bed, but the walls
were covered by noble studies of mountains, Clive pointed out some
large holes in the floor, warning April not to get her foot twisted in
them.
"I don't think there are any snakes here," she said carelessly. "There
is an old cobra under the dining-room floor, and we often hear her
hissing to herself, but she never does any harm."
"It is better to sleep on the stoep at night," Ghostie recommended.
"We all do."
Before the afternoon April had settled down among them as if she had
lived there always. Sarle and his kisses seemed like a lost dream; the
menace of Kenna was forgotten. For the first time in her existence she
let herself drift with the tide, taking no thought for the morrow nor
the ultimate port at which her boat would "swing to." It was
lotus-eating in a sense, yet none of the dwellers at Ho-la-le-la idled.
It is true that Ghostie and _belle_ Helene were crocks, but they worked
at the business of repairing their bodies to tackle the battle of life
once more. April soon discovered that they were only two of the many
of Clive's comrades who came broken to the farm and went away healed.
Clive was a Theosophist: all men were her brothers, and all women her
sisters; but those especially among art-workers who fell by the wayside
might share her bread and blanket. They called her Old Mother Sphinx,
because of her inscrutable eyes, and the tenderness of her mothering.
She herself never stopped working, and her body was hard as iron from
long discipline. She rose in the dawn to work on her lands, hoeing,
digging her orchards, and tending her cattle in company with her
coloured labourers. It was only at odd moments or during the heat of
the day that she painted, and all the money she made with paint was
swallowed up by the farm, which did not pay, but which was the very
core of her heart.
Impossible for April to be in such company and not work too, even if
her thoughts had not demanded occupation. So, first she mended the
clothes of everybody, including Meekie's ragged piccanins; then she
went to the Paarl, bought a pot of green paint, and spent days of sheer
forgetfulness smartening up the rusty paraffin tins and barrels, and
all the bleared and blistered shutters and doors and sills of the farm,
that had not known paint for many years.
At mid-day they bathed in a tree-shaded pool that had formed in the bed
of a stream running across the farm. They had no bathing frocks but
their skins, and sometimes Clive, sitting stark on the bank, palette in
hand, painted the others as they tumbled in the dark brown water,
sporting and splashing like a lot of schoolboys. Afterwards they would
mooch home through the shimmering noontide heat, deliciously tired,
wrapped in reflection and their towels. Ghostie provided a perpetual
jest by wearing a smart Paris hat with a high cerise crown. She said
it had once belonged to the fastest woman in South Africa, who had
given it to her as a joke, but she did not mention the lady's name, nor
say in what her "fastness" consisted. This was characteristic of
visitors at Ho-la-le-la: they sometimes stated facts, but never talked
scandal. When April asked them to call her by her own name, instead of
"Diana," they did so without comment, accepting her as one of
themselves, and asking no questions about England, the voyage, or the
Cape. The scandalous tragedy of the April Fool had never reached them,
and if it had they would have taken little interest except to be sorry
for the girl.
In the evenings when work was put away Clive played to them on the
'cello.
"I was determined to have music in my life," she told April. "And as
you can't lug a piano and musician all over the shop with you, I saw no
way of getting it but to darn well teach myself."
And very well she had done it, though why she had chosen a 'cello,
which also needed some lugging, no one knew but herself. Sitting with
it between her heavy boots and breeched legs, the eternal cigarette
drooping from her mouth, she looked more than ever like Galahad, her
blue austere gaze seeming to search beyond the noble mountain tops of
her own pictures for some Holy Grail she would never find. No
complicated music was hers, just grand, simple things like Handel's
"Largo," Van Biene's "Broken Melody," "Ave Maria," or some of Squire's
sweet airs.
Sometimes at night they went out and climbed upon a huge rock that
stood in the apricot orchard. It was big enough to build a house on,
and called by Clive her Counsel Rock, because there she took counsel
with the stars when things went wrong with the farm. Lying flat on
their backs they could feel the warmth of the day still in the stone as
they gazed at the purple and silver panoply of heaven spread above
them, and Clive would commune with blue-rayed Sirius and his dark
companion; the Gemini, those radiant twins; Orion's belt in the centre
sky preciously gemmed with celestial diamonds; Canopus, a calm, pale
yellow star, the largest in our universe; Mars, gleaming red as a
madman's eye; Venus springing from the horizon, the Pleiades slinking
below it. The "galloping star" she claimed as her own on account of
its presumed horsiness.
"It's a funny thing," she said. "My mother and father were gentle,
bookish creatures with no understanding of animals. Even if a pony had
to be bought for us children, every male thing of the family--uncles,
nephews, tenth cousins--was summoned from every corner of England for
his advice and experience. Yet these unsophisticated beings have a
daughter like me--born into the world a full-blown horse-dealer! To
say nothing of mules. You can believe me or believe me not," she added
bragfully, "but there is _no one_ in this land of swindles who knows
more about mules than I do."
They chose to believe her, especially after hearing her haggling and
bartering with some of the itinerant dealers who visited the farm from
time to time.
"I don't know vy ve can't do pizness today! I got no profit in
anyting. I just been here for a friend"--thus the dealer.
"Ah! I know who your friend is," Clive would jeer from the stoep.
"You keep him under your own hat. But don't come here expecting to
swop a beautiful mule that cost me 20 pounds for that skew-eyed crock
that will go thin as a rake after three weeks on the sour veld, a 10
pound note thrown in, and taking me for a fool into the bargain. Your
horse is worth 15 pounds, and not a bean more."
"I also must lif!"--the whine of the Jew.
"I don't see the necessity." Clive shamelessly plagiarized Wilde,
Plato, or the holy prophets when it suited her.
"Vot, you know! You can't do pizness with a womans!" The dealer would
weep tears of blood, but Clive made the bargain.
A week slid past, and April barely noticed its passing. No word came
from the outer world. It was not the custom to read newspapers at
Ho-la-le-la, and all letters were stuffed unopened into a drawer, in
case they might be bills. Close friends were wise enough to
communicate by telegram, or, better still, dump themselves in person
upon the doorstep. The only reason that April had been expected and
fetched was that a "home letter" had heralded the likely advent of Lady
Diana, and given the date and hotel at which she would be staying.
Home letters were never stuffed away unopened.
Late one afternoon, however, there was an unexpected announcement. The
_boch-ma-keer-ie_ bird began to cry in the orchard, and Clive said it
was a surer sign of visitors than any that came from the telegraph
office.
"Tomorrow is Sunday. We'll have visitors, sure as a gun," she
prophesied.
April quailed. She could not bear the peaceful drifting to end, and
wished for no reminder of that outer world where Bellew, the mail-boat
for England, and the dreary task of breaking an old man's heart awaited
her. Sometimes in spite of herself she was obliged to consider these
things, and the considering threw shadows under her eyes and hollowed
her cheeks. Sarle, too, though he was a dream by day, became very real
at night when she should have been dreaming. She knew now that she
could never escape from the memory of him, and the thought that he was
suffering from her silence and defection tortured her. What must he
think of her, slinking guiltily away without a word of explanation or
farewell? Doubtless Kenna would set him right! "Faithful are the
wounds of a friend," she thought bitterly. Better far and braver to
have done the explaining and setting right herself, if only she could
have found some way of releasing herself from the compact of silence
made with Diana and Bellew.
Sunday, morning dawned very perfectly. They were all sleeping on the
stoep, their beds in line against the wall, Clive upon the oak chest,
which her austere self-discipline commanded. At three o'clock, though
a few stars lingered, the sky was already tinting itself with the
lovely lustre of a pink pearl. No sound broke the stillness but the
breathing of the sleepers and the soft perpetual dropping of acorns
from the branches overhead.
The peace and beauty of it smote April to the heart. She pressed her
fingers over her eyes and tears oozed through them, trickling down her
face. When at last she looked again the stars were gone and the sky
was blue as a thrush's egg, with a fluff of rose-red clouds knitted
together overhead and a few crimson rags scudding across the Qua-Quas.
A dove suddenly cried, "Choo-coo, choo-coo," and others took up the
refrain, until in the hills and woods hundreds of doves were greeting
the morning with their soft, thrilling cries. Fowls straying from a
barn near by started scratching in the sand. The first streak of
sunshine shot across the hills and struck a bush of pomegranates
blossoming scarlet by the gate.
Presently the farm workers began to come from their huts and file past
the stoep towards the outhouses. Julie, the Cape foreman, with a right
leg longer than the left, was the first to stagger by.
"Moorer, Missis!" he said, with a pull of his cap and a swift
respectful glance at the stoep. Clive, awake by now on her oak chest,
responded absently without raising her head from the pillow.
"Moorer, Julie!"
Next, Isaac, whose legs were so formed that when he stood still they
described a circle, and when he moved the circle became a triangle.
"Moorer, Missis!" said he.
"Moorer, Isaac!"
Jim, the cowherd, had a hare-lip and no roof to his mouth, and was so
modest that he turned his head away when he lisped his salutation to
the stoep.
"Moor-ler, Mithis!"
"Moorer, Jim!"
After a few moment's silence a voice from one of the beds was heard.
"Is the file-past of the Decrepits over? May one now sleep for a
while?"
"This place ought to be called _des Invalides_," grumbled another.
Clive laughed her large, blithe laugh.
"At any rate, there's nothing wrong with me," she proclaimed, and
sprang with one leap into her top-boots. Passing April's bed she
touched the girl's eyelids tenderly, and her finger-tips came away wet.
"Nor with our little April, I hope--except a passing shower! You had
better come up the lands with me this morning, and plant trees."
That was Clive's cure for all ills of the body and soul: to plant trees
that would grow up and benefit Africa long after the planters were dead
and forgotten. No one ever left Ho-la-le-la without having had a dose
of this medicine, and many an incipient forest lay along the valleys
and down the sides of the Qua-Quas. So behold April an hour or two
later, faring forth with a pick and a basket full of saplings, followed
by Clive leading the Kerry cow, who was sick and needed exercise.
They lunched in the open, resting from their labours and savouring the
sweetness of food earned by physical labour. Care was stuffed out of
sight, dreams and ghosts faded in the clear sun-beaten air, and again
April realized what life could mean in this wonderful land, given the
right companionship, and a clean heart. But Clive, with arms clasped
about her knees, sat munching apricots and staring with a strange
sadness at her forests of baby trees. There was an unfulfilled look on
her face, spite of living her own life, and following her star.
Neither Africa nor life had given her all she needed.
Later they wended their way back full of the happy weariness engendered
by honest toil. But nearing home Clive lifted her nose, and sniffing
the breeze like a wild ass of the desert sensing unfamiliar things
scowled bitterly.
"Petrol!" she ejaculated. "One of those stinking motor-cars! Why
can't people use horses, like gentlemen? What's the matter with a nice
mule, even?"
As they slouched warily round the house and came in view of the stoep
she emitted a staccato whistle of dismay. Tethered out upon the
vagabondish grass was--not one motor-car, but three! An opulent thing
of blinking brass and crimson leather arrogated to itself the exclusive
shade of the largest tree; a long grey torpedo affair of two seats
occupied the pasturage of the Kerry cow; and blistering in the
sunshine, with several fowls perched upon it, was an ancient Ford
wearing the roystering air of a scallywag come home for good.
"That old _boch-ma-keer-ie_ bird knew something!" muttered the painter.
"I don't like the look of this!"
They paused to take counsel of each other, then presently advanced,
Clive approaching her own front door with the stealthy glide of a
pickpocket, April tip-toeing behind her. The idea was to get indoors
without being seen, listen in the hall to discover whether the visitors
were agreeable ones, and if not, to take refuge in the kitchen until
they had departed. Unfortunately one of them came out of the front
door to shake his pipe on the stoep as Clive and April reached the
steps.
"Why, it's old Kerry Sarle!" cried Clive heartily, and stealth fell
from her. She beamed with happiness, and shook his hand unceasingly,
pouring forth questions like water.
"When did you get back? Why didn't you come before? What did you
bring a crowd for? Who have you got with you?"
"Only Kenna. The crowd doesn't belong to me. They've come to buy
pictures or something, and are in your studio. I haven't seen them.
We are in the dining-room."
His speech was disjointed and halting, his amazed gaze fixed upon the
girl standing thunderstruck at the foot of the steps. Clive forged on
into the house with a gloomy eye; she hated to sell pictures, even when
she needed the money. April and Sarle were left together, and in a
moment he was down the step by her side. They stood looking at each
other with the memory of their last kiss kindling between them. He had
been bitterly hurt, but he loved and trusted her beyond all things that
were, and could not conceal the happiness in his eyes. Only for the
open studio windows and the round-eyed piccannins, he would have
gathered her to his heart; as it was he gathered her hands instead and
held them where they could feel its beating.
"Darling! Thank God I have found you."
Kenna had not betrayed her, then. The blow was still to fall. She
managed to smile a little, but she had turned very pale, and there was
something in her silence chilling even to his ardent spirit.
"You don't think I tracked you down? We motored out here with no idea
but to see Clive Connal----"
"Of course not." She strove to speak casually. "I couldn't expect to
have a friend like Clive all to myself, but I never dreamed you knew
her."
"She has been my friend for twelve years or more."
"Yes," said Kenna's voice from the stoep, "we are all old friends
together here."
He had come out with _belle_ Helene, and stood smiling upon them. The
old malice was there, with some new element of strain that made him
look more sardonic, yet strangely pathetic to the girl who feared him.
"Who'd have thought to find you here, Lady Di?" he sneered softly.
"Life is full of pleasant surprises!"
They all went into the dining-room, where tea was laid, and Clive
brought in her picture-dealers, who proved to be two globe-trotters
anxious to acquire specimens of South African art. Someone had told
them that Clive Connal stood top of the tree amongst Cape painters, so
they had spent about seven pounds ten on a car from Cape Town in the
hope of getting some rare gem for a couple of guineas. One was a fat
and pompous ass, the other a withered monkey of a fellow who hopped
about peering through his monocle at the pictures on the walls,
uttering deprecating criticism in the hope of bringing down prices.
"This sketch of Victoria Falls is not bad," he piped, gazing at a thing
of tender mists and spraying water above a titanic rock-bound gorge.
"The left foreground wants breaking up a bit, though!"
"I think you want breaking up a bit," muttered Clive, who had already
made up her mind to sell him nothing, and looking longingly at her
sjambok lying on the sideboard. "Where are Ghostie and the others?"
she demanded.
"They had tea by themselves in Ghostie's room." _Belle_ Helene
proffered the statement rather hesitatingly, and no wonder, in a house
where "_les amies de mes amis sont mes amies_" was the rule. It took
more than that to offend Clive, but she looked astonished.
"Oh, all right, then, let's have ours," she said, and sitting at the
head of her table held the loaf of home-made brown bread firmly to her
breast, carving hefty slices and passing them on the point of the knife
to _belle_ Helene, who jammed them from a tin. Customs were simple and
the fare frugal at Ho-la-le-la. There were only two teaspoons between
six, as Ghostie had the other two in her bedroom. The jam
unfortunately gave out before the globe-trotters got theirs, but there
was some good dripping--if they had only happened to like dripping.
They seemed pained before the end of the meal, and one was heard to
murmur to the other as they went out:
"Would you believe that her father was a clergyman? Bread and
dripping! and jam scratched out of a tin! This comes of living in the
wilds of Africa, I suppose. An entire loss of culture!"
The daughter of the clergyman must have surprised them a good deal by
her unexpected spurt of holiness in refusing to sell pictures on a
Sunday. They wound up their old taxi and went away very much annoyed
at having come so far for nothing.
"Whose then is the Babylonian litter with trappings of scarlet and
gold?" asked Clive, as the Ford rattled off. "You don't mean to say
you fellows came in a thing like that?"
They denied it until seventy times seven. The grey torpedo was
Sarle's. Kenna was of opinion that the owners of the crimson caravan
must be Johannesburgers, and "dripping with it."
"Not Johannesburgers," disputed Clive, with a wry lip. "No; they're
too exclusive for that."
Something must have gone very wrong indeed with the atmosphere for
Clive to start sneering. In truth some jangling element unnatural to
the sweet accord of Ho-la-le-la had been introduced, and did not leave
with the strangers.
They settled down to smoke in the studio, but there was more smoke
about than tranquillity. Sarle seemed distrait. _Belle_ Helene
sometimes cast an uneasy glance at April, who, still very pale, sat by
herself on the lounge. Only Clive and Kenna talked racily, but in
jerks, of cattle, fruit-blight, mules, and white ants. But presently
all subjects of conversation seemed to peter out, leaving a dark pool
of silence to form between them in the room. Kenna it was who threw
the stone disturbing those still waters.
"Has any one told you, Miss Connal, about the girl who committed
suicide on the _Clarendon Castle_?"
For a full moment not a word was spoken. Sarle, staring, made a
movement with his hand over his mat of hair. April's lids fell over
her eyes as though afflicted by a deadly weariness. Clive changed her
cigarette from one corner of her mouth to the other before answering
briefly:
"Yes; I know all about it." Which seemed to astonish Kenna.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I wish I did!"
It was Sarle's turn to look astonished.
"Why, Kenna, I told you everything there was to know. Besides, it was
in the papers."
"No, Kerry. You told me something . . . and the papers told me
something. _Everything_ can only be related by one person."
Dramatically he fixed his glance upon that person. There was no
mistaking the challenge. April found courage to return his glance, but
her eyes looked like the eyes of a drowning girl. At the sight of them
two people were moved to action. _Belle_ Helene rose and slipped from
the room. Sarle also rose, but it was to seat himself again by April's
side on the lounge.
"I don't understand what all this is about," he said quietly, "but it
seems a good time for you to know, Kenna, and you, Clive, that we"--he
took April's hand in his--"are engaged, and going to be married as soon
as possible."
Kenna looked at him with pity and tenderness.
"You had better let her speak, old man. It is time you were
undeceived."
"Be careful, Kenna."
"My dear Kerry, do you suppose that it gives me any pleasure to cause
you pain, or to distress this charming lady? Only my friendship for
you----"
"I can dispense with it," Sarle curtly interrupted.
"Ah! That's the way when a woman steps in." Kenna's lips twisted in a
bitter grin. Sarle turned to April.
"Diana . . ."
"That is the very crux of the matter," rapped out, Kenna. "_She is
not_ Diana."
"What in God's name----?" began Sarle.
"What I want to know," pursued Kenna sombrely, "is--why, if Diana
Vernilands jumped overboard, does this girl go masquerading under her
title?"
"Are you mad?" Sarle stared from one to the other. "Haven't you known
her all your life? Did you not meet as old friends?"
Kenna shrugged. "I never set eyes on her until that day at the 'Mount
Nelson.' She was a friend of yours and chose to call herself by the
name of a friend of mine, and . . . I humoured her . . . and you. But
the thing has gone too far. After inquiries among other passengers I
have realized the truth--that it was Diana who . . ." A spasm of pain
flickered across his melancholy eyes. Sarle, in grave wonder and hurt,
turned to April.
"It is true," she cried bitterly, pierced to the heart by his look.
"Diana is drowned. I am a masquerader." Even if she had been nothing
to him he could not have remained unmoved by the desperate pleading of
her eyes. But he happened to love her with the love that casts out
fear, and distrust, and all misunderstanding.
"I am the real April Poole," she said, broken, but resolute that at
least there should be no further mistake. He gave her one long look,
then lifted her hand, and held it closer. The gesture was for all the
world to see. But Kenna had not finished with her.
"You will allow a natural curiosity in me to demand why you should wear
the name and retain the possessions of my friend Lady Diana
Vernilands?" he asked, dangerously suave.
Then Clive sprang full-armed to the fray.
"And you will allow a natural curiosity in me to demand why you should
harry my friend like this--browbeat her for a girlish folly entered
into mutually by two girls and ending in tragedy through no fault of
April's?" The painter's eyes burned with a blue fire bleak as her own
mountain tops. It was as though Joan of Arc had come to the rescue and
was sweeping the room with valiant sword. Even Kenna was partially
intimidated.
"That is her story," he muttered.
"You fool, Ronald Kenna," she said gently. "Can't you look in her face
and see there is no touch of treachery or darkness there? Thank God,
Kerry is not so blind."
There was a deep silence. Then she said:
"Listen, then, to my story," and repeated the facts April had told her,
but as April could never have told them, so profound was her
understanding of the motives of the two girls in exchanging identities,
so tender her treatment of the wayward Diana. Truly this "unfulfilled
woman" was greater in the width and depth of her soul than many of
those to whom life has given fulfilment of their dreams.
Daylight faded, and shadows stole through the open windows. In the
large, low-ceiled room clustered with saddles and harness and exquisite
pictures, everything grew dim, except their white faces, and the
glistening of tears as they dripped from April's lids.
"I must ask to be forgiven," said Kenna very humbly, at last. "My only
plea is that my friendship for Kerry blinded me. And . . ." he halted
an instant before the confession of his trouble. "I once loved that
little wayward girl."
So it was Diana Vernilands who had proved false and sent him into the
wilds! Somehow that explained much to them all: much for forgiveness,
but very much more for pity and sympathy.
Suddenly the peace of eventide was rudely shattered by the jarring
clank of a motor being geared-up for starting. Evidently Ghostie's
friends were departing in the same aloof spirit with which they had
held apart all the afternoon. No one in the studio stirred to speed
the parting guests. It did not seem fitting to obtrude upon the pride
of the great. A woman's voice bade good-bye, and Ghostie was heard
warning them of a large rock fifty yards up the lane. A man called
good-night, and they were off.
"By Jove! I know that fellow's voice," puzzled Sarle. April thought
she did too, but she was in a kind of happy trance where voices did not
matter. The next episode was Ghostie at the studio window blotting out
the evening skies.
"They have gone," she timidly announced.
"Ah! Joy go with them," remarked Clive, more in relief than regret.
"But there is still one of them in my room."
"_What?_"
"She has been waiting to speak to you all the afternoon; they all have,
but they could not face the crowd."
"Pore fellers," said Clive, with cutting irony.
"The one in my room's--a girl," said Ghostie--"a friend of yours."
"She has strange ways," commented Clive glumly. "But ask her to come
in. These also are my friends."
Ghostie disappeared. Simultaneously the two men arose; remarking that
they must be going--they had stayed too late, and it was getting dark.
Clive easily shut them up.
"Of course you can't go. Stay to supper and go back by the light of
the moon. We've got to have some music and sit on the Counsel Rock,
and eat--apricots and all sorts of things yet. And afterwards we'll
come a bit of the way with you."
They did not need much persuasion to settle down again. Clive handed
round smokes.
"We won't spoil the best hour of the day by lighting the lamp," she
said. They waited. In a minute or so they heard the strange girl
approaching. The house consisted of a number of rooms built in the
form of a square round a little back courtyard. Each room led into the
other, but had also an outer door. Ghostie's room was third from the
studio, with one between, unused because of huge holes in the floor.
It was through this dilapidated chamber that the girl could now be
heard approaching, clicking her high heels and picking her way
delicately by the aid of a candle whose beams showed under the door and
flicked across the courtyard at the back. In spite of its light she
caught one of her high heels in a hole, and a faint but distinctly
naughty word was heard, followed by a giggle. As she reached the door
she blew out the candle. They heard the puff of her breath, as plainly
as they had heard the naughty word. Then she stood in the open
doorway, visible only because she wore a white dress.
"Come in," said Clive with politeness, but irony not quite gone from
her voice. The figure did not stir or speak. For some reason unknown
to her, April felt the hair on her scalp stir as though a chill wind
had blown through it. And the same wind sent a thrill down her
backbone. Clive repeated the invitation, somewhat sharply, and then
the girl spoke.
"I'm ashamed to come in."
The voice was timid, and very low, but it was enough to make April give
a broken cry and hide her face in Sarle's shoulder. Kenna leapt to his
feet, and next moment the yellow spurt of a lighted match in his hand
revealed the drooping face of the girl in the doorway.
"My God! Diana!"
"Yes; isn't it awful!" she said mournfully. "I know I ought to be
dead, but I'm not. How do you do, Ronny?"
She passed him and came slowly across the room to the girl who was
trembling violently against Sarle's shoulder. The strain of the day,
ending in this, was almost more than April Poole could bear.
"Don't be frightened, April." She was genuinely concerned. "It is
really me and not my ghost. You see, I never jumped overboard at all,
but simply hid in one of Geoffrey Bellew's big packing-cases. I really
could not face those enraged beasts and Philistines any longer."
There was an amazed and gasping silence, but Diana in the middle of the
limelight was in her element, and rapidly regained her spirits. She
tripped to Clive and shook her warmly by the hand.
"So pleased to see you. I should have come out here long ago, but I
got so knocked about in the packing-case that I had to go to bed and be
nursed by Geoff's old aunt at Wynberg. Everything perfectly proper, so
don't be alarmed. She chaperoned us out here this afternoon, you know,
and would have liked to see you, but really it was rather awkward with
Ronny and Major Sarle turning up immediately afterwards. We didn't
expect to find April here either--naturally. That was a nasty bang in
the eye. I begged Ghostie to hide me in her room, and we waited and
waited, but these terrible men seem to have taken root here." She
twinkled at them gaily, but no one appeared to have recovered
sufficiently from shock to reciprocate her pert amusement.
"So at last, of course, I had to bundle them off and face the music
alone. Especially as _belle_ Helene told me there was some sort of
trouble boiling up in here for poor April."
"I suppose you never realized that trouble has been boiling up for her
ever since you disappeared?" said Clive.
"Oh, but of course; and I've been dreadfully sorry, and worrying myself
to ribbons."
"It doesn't seem to have interfered with your health," was Clive's only
rejoinder. "May one ask what you intended to do to put things
straight?"
Diana had the grace to look slightly abashed--only slightly.
"There was nothing for it but to come out here to you and sit tight
until the scandal had blown over, while April returned to England.
Once she got on board she would have found a letter telling her it was
all right, and that I was not dead at all."
"Very charming and considerate too!" commented Ronald Kenna acidly. "A
few other people, including Sarle and myself, might have been dead in
the meantime, but what would that have mattered?"
It was no use being acid with Diana, however. She was riotously
pleased with herself, and bubbling over with pride in her cleverness,
and joy in her escape from seclusion. Infection from her
light-heartedness was almost impossible, and once the shock had passed,
April easily forgave her the cruel and thoughtless part she had played,
the hours of anguish she had given. Sarle and Kenna exchanged one grim
glance, but it ended in a smile. The deep-rooted friendships of men do
not hurry to such short and poor conclusions. Besides, Sarle had come
that day to the attainment of his heart's desire, and was not inclined
to fall out with either Fate or friends. As for Kenna, looking at the
gilt-haired minx who held his heart-strings, he saw as in a vision that
days of peaceful loneliness on the veld were passing, and the future
held more uneasiness and folly than the mere month of April could
cover. He would need all the friends he had to see him through.
[1] Basuto for "Far away over there."