What happened to him during his hurried flight from the rondavel
Matheson never knew. He was conscious only of walking, walking heavily
and unseeingly, forward into the dusk, when night abruptly overtook him
and wrapped him in a darkness more complete than anything he had ever
imagined. When again it was light he woke, with an unrefreshed feeling
and a sense of having been victimised by an ugly dream of extraordinary
vividness, to find himself lying comfortably in Herman Nel's bed in the
rondavel, with an utter absence of any knowledge of how he came there.
He could not recollect going to bed overnight.
Resting quietly on the pillow in semi-wakefulness, his drowsy thoughts
occupied themselves with speculating on what had happened. Little by
little the events of the previous evening recurred to him, but always
with that dreamlike sense of unreality that left him unable to determine
what was actual and what only imaginary. The sudden sharp pain of his
wound which, when he moved abruptly, he felt for the first time since
waking, brought bade clearly to his memory the scene of the struggle
with Holman and Honor's intervention, assuring him that this was no
dream but ugly reality. He had seen again the woman he loved; had been
unfaithful in thought to the woman who loved him; had been at
death-grips with his enemy; and now lay sick from the wound he had
sustained--more side in mind than in body, conscious chiefly of the
stupefying fact that this woman whom he loved so dearly was the wife of
the man he had sought to kill, that that fact rendered his enmity
innocuous; he could not strike at Honor through any one she loved.
While he lay there, staring at the daylight through partially closed
lids in a misery so acute that his physical suffering seemed as nothing
compared with the anguish of his mind, he became aware that he was not
alone. Seated at some distance from the bed, engaged on work the nature
of which puzzled him to determine for a time, till he made out that she
was busy rolling and stitching bandages, was Mrs Krige, looking very
much as he had last seen her, her expression sad but calm in its earnest
confidence, and with a new purpose in the patient eyes. Her thoughts,
as she rolled the strips of linen to be used for the men who were
fighting for their right to recognition as an independent race, were
with her dead husband, her dead son, and the son who had gone forth to
strike for the old Republics. For the moment she had forgotten the
patient she was there to nurse; he had slept so long, had lain since
waking so quiet that she fancied him sleeping still.
A slight movement on his part caused her to look up, and she surprised
his gaze riveted on her and on the work in her hands, and read in the
mute inquiry in his eyes the questions he would have asked.
Swiftly and noiselessly she laid aside her work, and rose and approached
the bed, carrying a cup filled with milk, which she held to his lips.
He drank the contents and lay back again on the pillow and regarded her
with the hint of a smile in his eyes.
"I little thought when last we parted to meet you again like this," he
said. "I'm afraid I've been giving trouble. And I'm filled with
curiosity. It puzzles me to understand how I came here--in bed. The
last thing I recall is walking on the veld."
He raised himself slightly on his elbow and surveyed her with an
expression of perplexed inquiry. Her presence was another surprise amid
the rush of amazing events. To wake and find her seated in the room, as
quietly established as if she were in her own home, occasioned him
greater wonderment than anything that had befallen.
"I wish you'd enlighten me," he said. "I want to know how you came to
be here."
"Don't you think you had better lie still and just accept things?" she
suggested. "I am here to look after you. You will feel better after a
good rest."
"But I can't rest," he persisted. "I keep wondering about things. I
want to know... please."
"Butter Tom brought you in," she said. "You dropped from exhaustion.
The wound in your shoulder... It bled rather much."
"But that doesn't account for your presence," he said. "Butter Tom
didn't fetch you to my aid?"
"No." She turned aside and busied herself at the table. "I'm staying
with Mrs Nel," she added after a moment's pause for reflection. "It
wasn't far to come, you see."
It was not difficult to fill in the blanks in her halting explanation.
Matheson lay back on the pillow and was silent for a time, while Mrs
Krige, believing that his curiosity was satisfied, resumed her seat and
her occupation. Matheson watched her from the bed, rolling and
stitching the strips of linen and placing the finished bandages in
orderly rows on the table. There was something significant and
disturbing in the calm methodical process; it worried him unaccountably.
Actuated by a sudden resolve, he moved his shoulder to test how far it
incommoded him. It felt stiff and painful, but he had an idea that if
he could get to the station he would be able to manage the journey to
Cape Town. It was become a matter of urgent importance to him to get
away back to the coast. There was nothing he could accomplish by
remaining; and to remain in Honor's vicinity was intolerable. He put up
a hand and felt his shoulder. It had been bandaged with a skill that
suggested hospital training. He wondered who had done him this service.
Curiosity prompted him to inquire.
"Some one has dressed my wound," he said. "Was that you?"
"No." Mrs Krige looked up quickly. "Hadn't you better lie quiet?" she
said.
He picked at the coverlet with impatient fingers.
"I can't," he answered. "I can't rest. I want to be up and out of
this. If I had a conveyance I could get to the station, and the rest
would be easy. There's nothing much the matter with me. This wound--
it's trifling. Besides, I must get back."
"In a day or so," she answered soothingly. "Is it so irksome to have me
waiting on you for so brief a time?"
He smiled faintly.
"You are making me out ungrateful. It isn't that, believe me... You
are so kind; I know you will forgive my seeming ungraciousness. It is
really important that I should return to the coast. There is some one
in Cape Town who expects me. I am going to be married shortly."
He was conscious as he said this of the sudden brightening of Mrs
Krige's face. She glanced towards him with eyes that expressed interest
and an immense relief.
"I'm so glad," she said.
She got up and moved away to the window, and remained with her back
towards the bed, so that Matheson was no longer able to watch her face.
She was, as he was perfectly aware, thinking of the confidence he had
once reposed in her, when he had talked to her of his hopeless
attachment for Honor, and had seemed to reproach her for the
misdirection of Honor's views. Those days appeared far away now; so
much had happened in the interval; and yet the distress of them was
painfully alive.
"Tell me about her... her name, and where she lives," Mrs Krige said
presently, without turning round. "You know I'm interested. I always
hoped that--that something of the sort would happen." She faced about
and came back to the bed and sat down beside it. "I wish I knew her.
Help me to know her through you... Talk to me about her. If you
describe her I shall have a picture of her in my mind."
The pleasant eyes bent upon him were so kind and inviting of confidence;
the voice, asking for details of the girl he was so soon to marry,
expressed such real sympathy and understanding, that Matheson found
himself confiding in her fully the story of his engagement and the
events which had led up to it. He painted the worth of his little
fiancee in no mean colours, and admitted his own good fortune in having
won the most priceless of all possessions, a good woman's earnest love.
But he did not speak of his own love. Possibly the mother of Honor
understood that for him the shadow of the past lay darkly yet across the
sunlit prospect of this later love, and, lingering, obscured the
brightness of the newly won happiness in the gloom of unforgettable
things. But no shadow hovers eternally in life's sky: the darkest
clouds must pass.
He told her of Brenda's home life, and touched upon the sadness of her
girlhood, and the plucky fight she was putting up when he met her.
"She's such a brave, bright little soul," he finished. "I want to make
up to her if I can for the things she's missed. I'm going to devote my
life to that end. Only sometimes I doubt..."
He broke off and moved restlessly on the pillow, and looked up to
discover the kind, comprehending eyes scrutinising him attentively, and
flushed beneath their gaze.
"She's such a capital chum," he said. "I'm not really worthy of her."
"Oh! I think she stands a fair chance of being very happy," Mrs Krige
observed with conviction. "And from what you have told me, I should say
you have been fortunate enough to discover the right woman. A big
nature and a warm heart comprise a generous dowry. I would like to meet
her."
He looked pleased.
"Yes," he said; "you would like her. Perhaps, some day--when all this
beastly fuss is over..." He put out his unhurt arm and took her hand.
"It's such a pitiful mistake," he muttered. "Why did you let him join?"
She shook her head.
"It was not my doing," she answered. "Andreas felt the call. Life
leads us whither we must go. When a person has something taken from him
which he prizes, he endeavours to recover what he has lost. That is how
it is with us."
"But it isn't any sort of use," he urged. "Besides, it is only a
nominal loss. The country belongs to the people who live in it. Ask
Herman Nel. They won't succeed, you know--Andreas, and the others."
"God knows!" she answered. "General de Wet will never rest until he has
hoisted the flag in Pretoria. They are brave men, and they have right
on their side."
"Well, of course, it's all according to the point of view," he conceded.
"But Botha is a brave man--and Herman Nel. They too have right on
their side. It's a sad business when there is division in the
household."
"Yes," she admitted, and glanced involuntarily at the bandages upon the
table, and sighed. "Each war that befalls lays a foundation for the
next. Men don't consider the ties of blood when the question of
fighting arises."
"And women cease to consider the claims of love in like circumstance,"
he returned grimly.
She had no difficulty in following his meaning. Her face clouded
momentarily.
"That depends largely on the woman's outlook on life," she answered.
"With some women love is all-satisfying; but the woman with the highest
conception of love does not allow her ideals of life to be dominated by
passion. It is not always the woman who loves least who puts love
outside her life. But--you've talked enough." She got up abruptly and
returned to the table and her former occupation. "If I allow you to
discuss these matters, your temperature will run up, and I shall be
blamed."
"Blamed by whom?" he asked.
She bent her head lower over her work and answered quietly:
"Both my daughters have been through a course of hospital training."
"In preparation for this rebellion?" he suggested with a touch of
irritation in his tones.
"In preparation for the rising of their people," she replied with a
gentle dignity of manner that rebuked his anger.
He made no answer, but lay still in a thoughtful silence and watched her
while she worked.