Letter.
It was just after sunset, and Lyndall had not yet returned from her
first driving-lesson, when the lean coloured woman standing at the
corner of the house to enjoy the evening breeze, saw coming along the
road a strange horseman. Very narrowly she surveyed him, as slowly he
approached. He was attired in the deepest mourning, the black crepe
round his tall hat totally concealing the black felt, and nothing but a
dazzling shirt-front relieving the funereal tone of his attire. He rode
much forward in his saddle, with his chin resting on the uppermost of
his shirt-studs, and there was an air of meek subjection to the will of
Heaven, and to what might be in store for him, that bespoke itself even
in the way in which he gently urged his steed. He was evidently in no
hurry to reach his destination, for the nearer he approached to it the
slacker did his bridle hang. The coloured woman having duly inspected
him, dashed into the dwelling.
“Here is another one!” she cried--“a widower; I see it by his hat.”
“Good Lord!” said Tant Sannie; “it’s the seventh I’ve had this month;
but the men know where sheep and good looks and money in the bank are to
be found,” she added, winking knowingly. “How does he look?”
“Nineteen, weak eyes, white hair, little round nose,” said the maid.
“Then it’s he! then it’s he!” said Tant Sannie triumphantly; “little
Piet Vander Walt, whose wife died last month--two farms, twelve thousand
sheep. I’ve not seen him, but my sister-in-law told me about him, and I
dreamed about him last night.”
Here Piet’s black hat appeared in the doorway, and the Boer-woman drew
herself up in dignified silence, extended the tips of her fingers, and
motioned solemnly to a chair. The young man seated himself, sticking his
feet as far under it as they would go, and said mildly:
“I am Little Piet Vander Walt, and my father is Big Piet Vander Walt.”
Tant Sannie said solemnly: “Yes.”
“Aunt,” said the young man, starting up spasmodically; “can I
off-saddle?”
“Yes.”
He seized his hat, and disappeared with a rush through the door.
“I told you so! I knew it!” said Tant Sannie. “The dear Lord doesn’t
send dreams for nothing. Didn’t I tell you this morning that I dreamed
of a great beast like a sheep, with red eyes, and I killed it? Wasn’t
the white wool his hair, and the red eyes his weak eyes, and my killing
him meant marriage? Get supper ready quickly; the sheep’s inside and
roaster-cakes. We shall sit up tonight.”
To young Piet Vander Walt that supper was a period of intense torture.
There was something overawing in that assembly of English people, with
their incomprehensible speech; and moreover, it was his first courtship;
his first wife had courted him, and ten months of severe domestic rule
had not raised his spirit nor courage. He ate little, and when he
raised a morsel to his lips glanced guiltily round to see if he were
not observed. He had put three rings on his little finger, with the
intention of sticking it out stiffly when he raised a coffee-cup; now
the little finger was curled miserably among its fellows. It was small
relief when the meal was over, and Tant Sannie and he repaired to the
front room. Once seated there, he set his knees close together, stood
his black hat upon them, and wretchedly turned the brim up and down.
But supper had cheered Tant Sannie, who found it impossible longer to
maintain that decorous silence, and whose heart yearned over the youth.
“I was related to your aunt Selena who died,” said Tant Sannie. “My
mother’s stepbrother’s child was married to her father’s brother’s
stepnephew’s niece.”
“Yes, aunt,” said the young man, “I know we were related.”
“It was her cousin,” said Tant Sannie, now fairly on the flow, “who had
the cancer cut out of her breast by the other doctor, who was not the
right doctor they sent for, but who did it quite as well.”
“Yes, aunt,” said the young man.
“I’ve heard about it often,” said Tant Sannie. “And he was the son of
the old doctor that they say died on Christmas-day, but I don’t know
if that’s true. People do tell such awful lies. Why should he die on
Christmas-day more than any other day?”
“Yes, aunt, why?” said the young man meekly.
“Did you ever have the toothache?” asked Tant Sannie.
“No, aunt.”
“Well, they say that doctor--not the son of the old doctor that died on
Christmas-day, the other that didn’t come when he was sent for--he gave
such good stuff for the toothache that if you opened the bottle in the
room where any one was bad they got better directly. You could see it
was good stuff,” said Tant Sannie; “it tasted horrid. That was a real
doctor! He used to give a bottle so high,” said the Boer-woman, raising
her hand a foot from the table, “you could drink at it for a month and
it wouldn’t get done, and the same medicine was good for all sorts of
sicknesses--croup, measles, jaundice, dropsy. Now you have to buy a new
kind for each sickness. The doctors aren’t so good as they used to be.”
“No, aunt,” said the young man, who was trying to gain courage to stick
out his legs and clink his spurs together. He did so at last.
Tant Sannie had noticed the spurs before; but she thought it showed a
nice manly spirit, and her heart warmed yet more to the youth.
“Did you ever have convulsions when you were a baby?” asked Tant Sannie.
“Yes,” said the young man.
“Strange,” said Tant Sannie; “I had convulsions too. Wonderful that we
should be so much alike!”
“Aunt,” said the young man explosively, “can we sit up tonight?”
Tant Sannie hung her head and half closed her eyes; but finding that her
little wiles were thrown away, the young man staring fixedly at his hat,
she simpered, “Yes,” and went away to fetch candles.
In the dining room Em worked at her machine, and Gregory sat close
beside her, his great blue eyes turned to the window where Lyndall
leaned out talking to Waldo.
Tant Sannie took two candles out of the cupboard and held them up
triumphantly, winking all round the room.
“He’s asked for them,” she said.
“Does he want them for his horse’s rubbed back?” asked Gregory, new to
up-country life.
“No,” said Tant Sannie, indignantly; “we’re going to sit up!” and she
walked off in triumph with the candles.
Nevertheless, when all the rest of the house had retired, when the long
candle was lighted, when the coffee-kettle was filled, when she sat in
the elbow-chair, with her lover on a chair close beside her, and when
the vigil of the night was fairly begun, she began to find it wearisome.
The young man looked chilly, and said nothing.
“Won’t you put your feet on my stove?” said Tant Sannie.
“No thank you, aunt,” said the young man, and both lapsed into silence.
At last Tant Sannie, afraid of going to sleep, tapped a strong cup of
coffee for herself and handed another to her lover. This visibly revived
both.
“How long were you married, cousin?”
“Ten months, aunt.”
“How old was your baby?”
“Three days when it died.”
“It’s very hard when we must give our husbands and wives to the Lord,”
said Tant Sannie.
“Very,” said the young man; “but it’s the Lord’s will.”
“Yes,” said Tant Sannie, and sighed.
“She was such a good wife, aunt: I’ve known her break a churn-stick over
a maid’s head for only letting dust come on a milk cloth.”
Tant Sannie felt a twinge of jealousy. She had never broken a
churn-stick on a maid’s head.
“I hope your wife made a good end,” she said.
“Oh, beautiful, aunt: she said up a psalm and two hymns and a half
before she died.”
“Did she leave any messages?” asked Tant Sannie.
“No,” said the young man; “but the night before she died I was lying at
the foot of her bed; I felt her foot kick me.
“‘Piet,’ she said.
“‘Annie, my heart,’ said I.
“‘My little baby that died yesterday has been here, and it stood over
the wagon-box,’ she said.
“‘What did it say?’ I asked.
“‘It said that if I died you must marry a fat woman.’
“‘I will,’ I said, and I went to sleep again. Presently she woke me.
“‘The little baby has been here again, and it says you must marry a
woman over thirty, and who’s had two husbands.’
“I didn’t go to sleep after that for a long time, aunt; but when I did
she woke me.
“‘The baby has been here again,’ she said, ‘and it says you mustn’t
marry a woman with a mole.’ I told her I wouldn’t; and the next day she
died.”
“That was a vision from the Redeemer,” said Tant Sannie.
The young man nodded his head mournfully. He thought of a younger sister
of his wife’s who was not fat, and who had a mole, and of whom his wife
had always been jealous, and he wished the little baby had liked better
staying in heaven than coming and standing over the wagon-chest.
“I suppose that’s why you came to me,” said Tant Sannie.
“Yes, aunt. And pa said I ought to get married before shearing-time. It
is bad if there’s no one to see after things then; and the maids waste
such a lot of fat.”
“When do you want to get married?”
“Next month, aunt,” said the young man in a tone of hopeless
resignation. “May I kiss you, aunt?”
“Fie! fie!” said Tant Sannie, and then gave him a resounding kiss.
“Come, draw your chair a little closer,” she said, and their elbows now
touching, they sat on through the night.
The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant Sannie’s bedroom,
she found the Boer-woman pulling off her boots preparatory to climbing
into bed.
“Where is Piet Vander Walt?”
“Just gone,” said Tant Sannie; “and I am going to marry him this day
four weeks. I am dead sleepy,” she added; “the stupid thing doesn’t know
how to talk love-talk at all,” and she climbed into the four-poster,
clothes and all, and drew the quilt up to her chin.
*****
On the day preceding Tant Sannie’s wedding, Gregory Rose sat in the
blazing sun on the stone wall behind his daub-and-wattle house. It
was warm, but he was intently watching a small buggy that was being
recklessly driven over the bushes in the direction of the farmhouse.
Gregory never stirred till it had vanished; then, finding the stones
hot, he slipped down and walked into the house. He kicked the little
pail that lay in the doorway, and sent it into one corner; that did him
good. Then he sat down on the box, and began cutting letters out of a
piece of newspaper. Finding that the snippings littered the floor, he
picked them up and began scribbling on his blotting-paper. He tried the
effect of different initials before the name Rose: G. Rose, E. Rose, L.
Rose, Rose, L.L., L.L. Rose. When he had covered the sheet, he looked at
it discontentedly a little while, then suddenly began to write a letter:
“Beloved Sister,
“It is a long while since I last wrote to you, but I have had no time.
This is the first morning I have been at home since I don’t know when.
Em always expects me to go down to the farmhouse in the morning; but I
didn’t feel as though I could stand the ride today.
“I have much news for you.
“Tant Sannie, Em’s Boer stepmother, is to be married tomorrow. She is
gone to town today, and the wedding feast is to be at her brother’s
farm. Em and I are going to ride over on horseback, but her cousin is
going to ride in the buggy with that German. I don’t think I’ve written
to you since she came back from school. I don’t think you would like her
at all, Jemima; there’s something so proud about her. She thinks just
because she’s handsome there’s nobody good enough to talk to her, and
just as if there had nobody else but her been to boarding-school before.
“They are going to have a grand affair tomorrow; all the Boers about are
coming, and they are going to dance all night; but I don’t think I
shall dance at all; for, as Em’s cousin says, these Boer dances are low
things. I am sure I only danced at the last to please Em. I don’t know
why she is fond of dancing. Em talked of our being married on the same
day as Tant Sannie; but I said it would be nicer for her if she waited
till the shearing was over, and I took her down to see you. I suppose
she will have to live with us (Em’s cousin, I mean), as she has not
anything in the world but a poor fifty pounds. I don’t like her at all,
Jemima, and I don’t think you would. She’s got such queer ways; she’s
always driving about in a gig with that low German; and I don’t think
it’s at all the thing for a woman to be going about with a man she’s
not engaged to. Do you? If it was me now, of course, who am a kind of
connection, it would be different. The way she treats me, considering
that I am so soon to be her cousin, is not at all nice. I took down my
album the other day with your likenesses in it, and I told her she could
look at it, and put it down close to her; but she just said, Thank you,
and never even touched it, as much as to say--What are your relations to
me?
“She gets the wildest horses in that buggy, and a horrid snappish little
cur belonging to the German sitting in front, and then she drives out
alone. I don’t think it’s at all proper for a woman to drive out alone;
I wouldn’t allow it if she was my sister. The other morning, I don’t
know how it happened, I was going in the way from which she was coming,
and that little beast--they call him Doss--began to bark when he saw
me--he always does, the little wretch--and the horses began to spring,
and kicked the splashboard all to pieces. It was a sight to see Jemima!
She has got the littlest hands I ever saw--I could hold them both in
one of mine, and not know that I’d got anything except that they were
so soft; but she held those horses in as though they were made of iron.
When I wanted to help her she said, ‘No thank you: I can manage them
myself. I’ve got a pair of bits that would break their jaws if I used
them well,’ and she laughed and drove away. It’s so unwomanly.
“Tell father my hire of the ground will not be out for six months, and
before that Em and I will be married. My pair of birds is breeding now,
but I haven’t been down to see them for three days. I don’t seem to care
about anything any more. I don’t know what it is; I’m not well. If I
go into town on Saturday I will let the doctor examine me; but perhaps
she’ll go in herself. It’s a very strange thing, Jemima, but she never
will send her letters to post by me. If I ask her she has none, and
the very next day she goes in and posts them herself. You mustn’t say
anything about it, Jemima, but twice I’ve brought her letters from the
post in a gentleman’s hand, and I’m sure they were both from the same
person, because I noticed every little mark, even the dotting of the
i’s.
“Of course it’s nothing to me; but for Em’s sake I can’t help feeling an
interest in her, however much I may dislike her myself; and I hope she’s
up to nothing. I pity the man who marries her; I wouldn’t be him for
anything. If I had a wife with pride I’d make her give it up, sharp. I
don’t believe in a man who can’t make a woman obey him. Now Em--I’m very
fond of her, as you know--but if I tell her to put on a certain dress,
that dress she puts on; and if I tell her to sit on a certain seat,
on that seat she sits; and if I tell her not to speak to a certain
individual, she does not speak to them. If a man lets a woman do what he
doesn’t like he’s a muff.
“Give my love to mother and the children. The veld here is looking
pretty good, and the sheep are better since we washed them. Tell father
the dip he recommended is very good.
“Em sends her love to you. She is making me some woollen shirts; but
they don’t fit me so nicely as those mother made me.
“Write soon to
“Your loving brother, Gregory.
“P.S.--She drove past just now; I was sitting on the kraal wall right
before her eyes, and she never even bowed. G.N.R.”