They were inspecting the great koodoo head in Ben Halse's yard. Denham
was delighted.
"Why, it's perfect," he declared. "Perfect, simply perfect."
"Yes, I believe it's an absolute record. But we'll have to be a bit
careful how we get it away; however, there's no hurry about that."
"There's an old saying, you know, Mr Halse," said Denham: "`short
accounts make long friends.' So you won't mind taking over this now,"
and he handed the other a folded cheque.
Ben Halse opened it, and started. Then he handed it back.
"It's too much," he said. "The head's worth a good deal, but not as
much as that. No."
"It's worth it all to me," was the answer. "Well, then, name your own
figure."
Ben did so.
"Right," said Denham, "you shall have your way. But I'd rather have had
mine," he laughed.
"A very common complaint," answered his host. "What would you like to
do this morning? In the afternoon Verna could take you down into the
forest, or anywhere else you like. She's busy this morning, and I have
things to see to."
Denham declared that that would be a delightful programme. He could get
through the morning easily enough, he said. They must on no account
make a stranger of him, or put themselves out in any way. The while he
had been keeping one ear open for Verna's voice, which came to them,
raised in snatches of song, from the other side of the house.
It was the day after his arrival at the store. They had all travelled
up together, having borrowed some extra harness and inspanned Denham's
horse as "unicorn," so that the extra weight didn't count so much, and
he was conscious of having thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Nor would he
try to disguise to himself the fact that this result was largely due to
the presence of Ben Halse's daughter.
It had taken all of three days; two nights being got through in such
scanty accommodation as could be obtained at lonely wayside stores
similar to that of Ben himself, though infinitely rougher, and the third
night camping in the veldt; during which, by the bye, Denham had started
out of his sleep declaring that a whacking big spider had just run over
his face, which was more than likely the case. But through heat and
dust and discomfort Verna's spirits never flagged, and her cheerfulness
remained unruffled. Now a three days' journey under such circumstances
is a pretty good test of character, and her attitude throughout was
thoroughly appreciated by her fellow-traveller and guest. She was
unique, he decided, unique and splendid.
He found her now engaged upon exactly the same homely occupation as that
on which she was engaged on the occasion of our first making her
acquaintance--bread-making, to wit.
"Useful as always, Miss Halse," he remarked. "Why, I don't know how we
should have got on coming along but for you."
She flashed a smile up at him.
"How did you get on without me when you came along through the Makanya
bush?" she said mischievously.
If there was that in the allusion that brought a change into Denham's
face it was only momentary.
"I had to then, worse luck," he laughed. "But I managed it somehow."
Then they both laughed--easily, happily.
Denham, looking down at her as she sat there, came to the conclusion
that she was more charming than ever. The sheen of her abundant brown
hair, carelessly but becomingly coiled, the dark semicircle of the
eyelashes on the cheek, the strong, supple figure so splendidly
outlined, the movement of the shapely arms as she kneaded the dough--
why, this homely performance was a poem in itself. Then the staging--
the fall of wooded slope to a deep down vista of plain below--dim in the
noontide haze where on the right a darker line in contrast to the open
green showed part of the great mysterious forest tract. Even the
utterly unaesthetic dwelling-house hardly seemed to spoil the picture.
"Well, and what is the subject of all this profound thought?" she asked
suddenly, with a quick, bright, upward glance.
He started, looked at her straight, and told her. Yet, somehow, he did
it in such a way as to avoid banality, possibly because so naturally.
"What did I tell you once before?" she said, but she changed colour ever
so slightly. "That you must not pay me compliments. They don't come
well from you--I mean they are too petty."
It might have been his turn to answer with a "_tu quoque_." But he did
not. What he said was--
"I was answering your question. I was describing the picture I had seen
in my own mind. How could I have left out the principal figure in it?"
Again she glanced up at him, was about to speak, then seemed to change
her mind. If her personality had struck Denham as unique, the very same
thing seemed to have struck her as regarded himself. The intellectual
face, the tall, fine frame, the easy, cultured manner, half-a-score
other things about him--all these rendered him a personality clean
outside her own experience. Whereby it will be seen that the atmosphere
around Ben Halse's remote and primitive dwelling was, even at this early
stage, charged with abundant potentialities.
"And `the principal figure' in it is all floury and generally
dishevelled," she said at last, with a light laugh.
"That makes the charm of the study."
"Do you paint, then, Mr Denham, in addition to your other scientific
accomplishments?"
"No; I thought I could dabble in it at one time, but had too many
serious irons in the fire. Still, I'm given to drawing mental pictures,
and this is one of them, that's all. By the way, your father was saying
you were going to be kind enough to act as my guide this afternoon. Is
that so?"
"Oh yes. We were talking about it before you came out. Where would you
like to go?"
"That I leave entirely to you. By the way, yes. Will you show me the
spot where you shot the record head?"
"It's rather far, I'm afraid, for one afternoon. However, we'll see.
Well, I'm through with this job now. I'll put it inside. Look! there
are some people coming to the store, I expect. Yes, they are. Come and
see me shop-keep, Mr Denham."
She took the tin of dough into the kitchen, and returned in a second
with some keys.
Two women and a youth were approaching. Verna unlocked the door, and,
as he entered, Denham looked curiously around and above at the multifold
variety of trade goods. The atmosphere was inclined to be musty, and,
by virtue of the nature of some of the things, not over-fragrant.
The natives entered, rather shyly, giving the salute. They stared
curiously at Denham. His fine physique and general bearing impressed
them. There could only be one opinion as to what had brought him there.
He had come to offer U' Ben _lobola_ for the _Inkosazana_. But they
would make a fine pair! This they told each other afterwards.
"Well, what is wanted?" Verna asked.
"Tobacco. Smoking tobacco such as white people use," answered one of
the women.
"Sapazani's `children' indulging in white men's customs? Ah, ah!"
answered Verna, with a shake of the head. The woman looked somewhat
subdued, and managed to convey that it was a thing they did not wish
talked about.
The while Denham was taking in the whole scene, keenly interested.
Never had the liquid Zulu sounded so melodious as when it flowed from
Verna's lips, he decided to himself. Then other things were
requisitioned. Yards of calico were unfolded, and critically examined
by the intending purchaser. He watched the deftness and patience with
which Verna handled the things and bore with the intending purchasers,
who would look at the articles and then go and squat in a corner of the
room and talk over the transaction with each other in an undertone. The
boy was looking at him sideways, with staring eyeballs.
"That's their way," said Verna, with a merry glance at him. "You can't
rush these people. If you did you'd lose all your trade."
"By Jove! but I never thought there could be so much poetry in handing
things out over a counter," he burst forth.
"Thanks. But remember what I told you just now, also on a former
occasion," she answered, her eyes sparkling with fun. "You must not pay
me compliments, especially ironical ones. I am only an up-country
trader's daughter, who helps her father, up to her little best."
"Upon my conscience there was nothing ironical about it," he replied
somewhat vehemently, "It was dead, sober earnest."
She smiled again and nodded; then turning to the native women suggested
they had been a good while making up their minds. They took the hint,
and the deal was concluded.
Denham, the while, was in something of a maze. Most girls situated as
she was would have rather tried to keep him off witnessing this phase of
their everyday home life--in other words, would have tried all they knew
to "sink the shop." This one, on the contrary, had actually invited him
to witness it, just as she might have invited him to come and have a
look at the garden.
"Well, Mr Denham," said Verna, as the red-painted top-knots of the two
women vanished round the doorpost, "and what do you think of me in my
capacity of shop-girl?"
"If I were to tell you I should lay myself open to another rebuke," he
answered, with a laugh in his eyes.
"Have I been so hard on you as that? I didn't mean to be. By the way,
you are not smoking. Try some of this," reaching down an open bag of
Magaliesberg from a shelf.
"Thanks. I say, what's this?" looking at the bullet hole in the wall.
"Oh, that's nothing," she answered rather shamefacedly. "At least, you
heard all about it down at Ezulwini. Anyway, it's nothing to brag
about. Let's go outside."
"Certainly," acquiesced Denham, grasping, with ready tact, that she did
not wish to pursue the subject. And he was right. Even as in the
matter of shooting the koodoo she shrank from dwelling upon anything
that would tend to set her forth in his eyes as a strong, self-reliant
Amazon type of woman; more so now than then.
"I wish I was more like other girls, Mr Denham," she broke forth with
that winning, breezy naturalness which had so struck him. "If I were
musical, for instance, and all that, I could play to you of an evening.
I'm afraid you must find the evenings so slow."
"I've only had one evening here, and I didn't find that a bit slow," he
answered. "Incidentally, the other evenings we have spent together have
been anything but slow."
"Together!" There was something in the word, and the way in which he
said it, that struck curiously upon her ears.
"I'm glad of that," she answered. "One always thinks that anybody out
from England, accustomed to the livelier sides of life, must become
hideously bored in an out-of-the-way wilderness such as this really is."
"It's a very beautiful wilderness, anyway," he said, looking out over
the great panorama of mountain and plain and forest, extending over
fifty miles, and misty in the heat of the unclouded sunlight. "But
that's where you make the mistake. The very contrast is so infinitely
restful. Not only restful, but invigorating. Slow! Think, for
instance, of all the vividly interesting stories and reminiscences your
father has been telling me since we first met, and especially during our
journey here. Why, they make this wonderful country simply glow with
life--and such life! The life which puts those `livelier sides of life'
you were just quoting into a dull, drab groove of monotony. No, don't
for a moment imagine there is the slightest possibility of a chance of
my feeling bored."
There was a vehemence, an intensity, about this deliverance that rather
astonished Verna. This man had another side, then? She had read him
wrong, or at least not quite right, when she had just sized him up as an
even, prosperous man of the world, one whose self-possession nothing
could ruffle, a charming companion, but one past anything in the shape
of a great enthusiasm. Now she began to realise that she had not seen
every side of him, and the discovery in no way diminished her interest
in him.
"Well, that rather relieves me, from the responsibility point of view,
at any rate," she answered, flashing up at him one of those bright
smiles of hers. "So now, on the strength of it, I'll get you to excuse
me. There's a lot to do inside. But we'll have such a jolly time of it
this afternoon." And with a bright nod she left him.
Denham lit a fresh pipe, and strolled out a little way from the house.
It seemed to him that something had been withdrawn. He missed Verna's
presence and gracious companionship. To the full consciousness of this
he awoke with a start. He was too old and experienced to do anything
that might seem like "hanging around" her, wherefore he took a walk.
But as he looked out upon the panorama spread out in front and around,
revelled in the glow of the ambient air, even found something to
interest his naturalist soul, in the bushes or grass, he was still
thinking--well, he had better not think. Yet, why should he not? The
question pressed itself practically home to him. He was his own master,
and in every way in a position to please himself. Why should he not do
so?
What a rare "find" this was! he told himself, his thoughts running on
Verna. And if he missed her presence because she had been obliged to
withdraw for an hour or so, what did it mean? A phrase ran uneasily
through his mind, "Can't bear her out of his sight." And this was the
first day of his arrival. No, assuredly it was time to pull himself
together. And then, her brightly uttered words of parting, "We'll have
such a jolly time of it this afternoon." Well, it should be no fault of
his if they did not.