One day, towards the end of the dry season in Central Africa more
than two years later, Norah was sitting on an empty packing-case
under the shade of an acacia, watching the tiling of her house.
Archie had been two years building it. He was so thorough that he
sometimes maddened her. Moreover, every brick and tile had to be
moulded and burnt on the farm; anthill clay for mortar dug and
carried; shells for lime pointing dredged from the river and burnt in
kilns; timber felled, dragged and hand sawn; doors and windows made
in the shop; bolts and iron work wrought in the forge; and natives
taught to do all this.
At last the white walls were up, the verandah pillars stood square
and solid, and the skeleton of the king post roof reared its symmetry
across the cloudless blue sky. A string of naked black urchins
herded by an objurgatory black capitao formed a chattering procession
carrying tiles, two in each hand and one on each head, to the tile
hangers, who crouched like black apes on the rafters.
Norah felt no elation at the thought of good work nearly done, and
stared blankly across a prospect of profitless and laborious years.
True, she would be heartily glad to be quit of her temporary
habitation of the last thirty months. From where she sat, she could
see the cluster of wattle-and-daub rondavels, where they lived while
the permanent house was building. It was across a little river that
ran swift as a mill race, bordered by marshy banks hidden in papyrus
rushes with heads like mops. Waterfowl, black, white, and grey, rose
into the air from time to time with harsh, melancholy cries. On
either bank of the river lay the flats, where grew the dry season
grass for Archie's cattle. The edge of the bush, as straight as if
drawn with a ruler, fringed the flats. Desolation gained her when
she thought how many square miles of trees lay between her and her
nearest white neighbour. Beyond the tops of the trees she could see
the rounded slopes of the hills, blue in the distance, as bright as a
child's painting.
On the flats, which stayed green when the scanty grass of the bush
had turned orange, she could see Archie's beloved herds and, going
his rounds, looking out for sick and ailing beasts, Archie himself.
To-day the disreputable grey double terai had for company a dirty
white topee. A wandering 'stiff' had descended on the farm some
evenings before with a ulendo[1] of two carriers. They had few
visitors, a dozen or two in the year, traders, missionaries, Boma[2]
officials, and occasionally a 'stiff,' some unfortunate with
insufficient kit and carriers, his presence in the country
imperfectly explained by an ostensible search for work where none was
to be found. Such were usually chary of giving their names or their
business. This one, a wizened little fellow with a half-hearted
beard and a game leg, answered, when he remembered, to the name of
Jones, and purported to have come from the Congo, over whose frontier
he admitted to have been escorted by Belgian askari. He had a
repertory of elephant stories and tales of tusks of incredible size,
but became elusive if pressed as to locality. He was now, no doubt,
giving Archie a wealth of inexpert advice on the treatment of cattle,
and Norah smiled as she imagined the impenetrable silence with which
it would be received.
[1] "Ulendo"--journey or the necessary components of a journey.
[2] "Boma"--lit. enclosure, hence the Government posts.
Archie had proved to have a knack with cattle. Brought up on the
farm his mother had inherited, he had learnt a good deal of
veterinary work in the gunners. The herd of native cattle he had
collected was as good as any in the country, and for grass his farm
was unrivalled. But lack of markets and the distance from rail-head,
which made freight prohibitive and the amenities of civilisation
rare, held him up. The only market which was not at the moment
barred by the embargoes of God or man--tsetse fly belts or prohibited
areas--was the Katanga, the district of the Congo copper mines, whose
vast compounds of native workers consumed unlimited meat. The
depreciated Belgian exchange, however, made it unprofitable for
Archie to sell there. So, while his herds increased and multiplied,
his bank balance, under the constant drain of working expenses, ebbed.
The cattle were already streaming to their kraals on the high ground.
Amid the shouting of the herd-boys, they snatched at a last bite of
grass as they shouldered their way and a little mist of dust rose
from their hoofs. Norah got up with a sigh as the sun sank behind
the darkened hills. Cattle attract lions and leopards, and it was
not safe for man or domestic beast to be abroad after dark.
She reached the ferry and stepped into the dug-out canoe, manned by
an elderly native with a withered leg, whom Archie employed from
charity. He pointed the nose of the canoe up-stream and pushed off.
Carried by the current, the boat swung round and bumped into the
rough steps on the farther bank. She sprang out bidding good-night
to the old man, who knelt down and clapped his hands in salutation.
Archie had not reached the rondavels before her; he would be seeing
the cattle safely kraaled for the night. Her 'boy,' Changalilo,
brought quinine and silently prepared a hip-bath for her.
Silence, discretion, and resource, were Changalilo's rare
qualifications. His tribe, the Awemba, a dignified, well-mannered,
and once warlike race, are as a rule too irresponsible to make good
servants. Norah explained the exception that was Changalilo by
attributing to him Arab blood. His lips and jaw showed no trace of
negroid thickness, and it was likely enough that in passage some Arab
slave trader had sired one of his parents.
His slimness and his white kanju made him look taller than he really
was, and his grave restrained manner lent him an aloofness which was
probably absent from his simple heart. Now he lingered in the room
soundlessly creating an impression, as native courtesy directs, that
there was something more to be said.
'What is it, Changalilo?' asked Norah.
'Io, mwkai--nothing, mistress,' came the disclaimer imposed by good
form on any speaker with news to impart.
Further interrogation elicited the fact that the sukambali, a lad of
fourteen who hewed wood, drew water, and washed plates, stated that
his father was ill, and that he wanted to go to his village.
'Is it true?' asked Norah.
Changalilo's silence indicated scepticism.
'In any case, he cannot start to-night,' she decided.
This was just her luck, with a guest in the house. She supposed she
would have to let the little beast go, and of course another
sukambali would appear in a day or two, but work in the kitchen would
be completely disorganised. Unless she cooked with her own hands,
food would be uneatable. How she hated housewifery. She had to do
it, though. Archie took over the whole work of the farm, and the
house fell to her share.
Her days seemed a round of ignoble detail--thwarting the table-boy's
appetite for sugar, driving the sukambali to wash the saucepans
before they were used, giving out paraffin, and watching that it was
not stolen from the lamps. That's what pioneering meant. Well, she
must stick it now. She promised Changalilo she would interview the
sukambali on the morrow, and dismissed him. There was a sound of
inharmonious humming outside, and Archie entered. He was in good
spirits, his day's work done, and his visitor bestowed for the moment
in the guest house. Norah, forcing a smile, inquired dutifully after
the farm.
'Wasted most of the day listening to Jones' rubbish,' was the reply.
'He knows more about elephant than cattle. I hope so, anyhow.
Telling me how to control the sex of calves. Pure superstition, of
course. His theory is that...' But Norah was not listening. Her
gaze wandered from a patch in the bulging wall, where the stakes
showed through the dull red mud, to the sagging thatch of the
ceilingless roof, whence insects were liable to drop. Her mind
contrasted this unromantic squalor with the spacious poverty of her
own home, and with the splendour of her London days, exaggerated, no
doubt, across the two-year gap of barren makeshift. Bravely, she
forced the picture out of her mind and bent her attention to Archie's
monosyllabic conversation.
'I think,' he was saying, 'I ought to see to getting another pure
bred bull to build up the herd a bit.'
At the familiar words 'build up the herd' Norah's restraint snapped.
When you consider that she had loyally suppressed her feelings for
over two years, perhaps her outburst may be forgiven her.
'What's the good of building up the precious herd, when you can't
sell the brutes? Do you think I've come to live like a Hottentot in
this desert to watch you acting midwife to a lot of humpbacked
African cows for their sakes? I never see you all day, except at
meals when you're eating, and in the evenings, when you're sleeping.
I believe you think more of your heifers than you do of your wife.'
Slowly Archie answered.
'It's the only safe line, Norah. If we build up...' he checked
himself in time. 'We've got the best herd in the country and it's
getting better all the time. When times are normal, we'll sell well.
It'll be easier for you in the new house, and it's only a question of
time....'
'So's life, Archie, only a question of time. Three score years and
ten of it, isn't it? And I've had twenty-four already. How long do
you want us to go on?'
But you can supply without my help the stock complaints of an
over-wrought woman.
The storm ended unusually for Norah in tears. Silently, Archie tried
to soothe her. He was thinking harder than he had for many a day.
Constant manual work leaves little room for thought. Typically, he
gave no utterance to his meditation. He liked to work things out in
his mind, bring his matured plan to a successful issue, and then, and
not till then, announce his conclusion. That was his habit, and he
pursued it now. Had he told Norah his thoughts, well, it would have
spoiled my story and saved a life.
As it was, Norah retired to bed with her nerves in shreds, and Archie
dined alone with his nomadic guest, whom a string of 'sundowners'
seemed to stimulate. His shrill voice was audible through the mud
walls till a late hour. Archie talked more than his wont, and seemed
to be asking questions. Only once were any words distinguishable.
'It's a bargain,' said Mr. Jones of the Congo.
Next morning at dawn she was awakened by an unusual bustle. She
supposed that their visitor had decided to decamp and that Archie was
hospitably supplying him with the many necessaries he lacked, before
speeding him on his way. She did not feel her presence was necessary
at that ceremony, nor did she as yet want to meet Archie. She was
sorry for last night's outburst because it must have hurt him. The
look in his eyes had nearly checked her words. But if he cared for
her, as his eyes seemed to say, as he once had cared for her, why did
his words, his actions never show it now? He never asked her advice,
sought her help. She had become part of his daily life, part of the
farm, like Simoni, the ploughman. Well, one must expect six years of
marriage to kill love, though it seemed a little hard that youth too
should be wasted. But it wasn't fair to say things that hurt Archie.
She must make it up to him for last night. But not now: she lacked
courage to pretend at this time in the morning. And if Archie said
the wrong thing she would give herself away, and hurt him afresh. So
when he knocked at her door, she lay very still, and shammed sleep.
He knocked twice, and hung about for some minutes, apparently
undecided whether to make another onslaught. Then his steps receded,
and the bustle died away.
When at length she came out to breakfast, wearing a flame coloured
jumper that was a favourite of Archie's, she found neither of the
men. Changalilo, standing at attention behind her chair, presented
the following literary effort:--
'_Dearest, have started for Elizabethville on cattle business. Will
write from there. Jones is here._--ARCHIE.'"