Three years later, pretty nearly to a day, I came back to see what
Lawson had made of his hobby. He had bidden me often to Welgevonden,
as he chose to call it--though I do not know why he should have fixed a
Dutch name to a countryside where Boer never trod. At the last there
had been some confusion about dates, and I wired the time of my
arrival, and set off without an answer. A motor met me at the queer
little wayside station of Taqui, and after many miles on a doubtful
highway I came to the gates of the park, and a road on which it was a
delight to move. Three years had wrought little difference in the
landscape. Lawson had done some planting,--conifers and flowering
shrubs and suchlike,--but wisely he had resolved that Nature had for
the most part forestalled him. All the same, he must have spent a mint
of money. The drive could not have been beaten in England, and fringes
of mown turf on either hand had been pared out of the lush meadows.
When we came over the edge of the hill and looked down on the secret
glen, I could not repress a cry of pleasure. The house stood on the
farther ridge, the viewpoint of the whole neighbourhood; and its brown
timbers and white rough-cast walls melted into the hillside as if it
had been there from the beginning of things. The vale below was
ordered in lawns and gardens. A blue lake received the rapids of the
stream, and its banks were a maze of green shades and glorious masses
of blossom. I noticed, too, that the little grove we had explored on
our first visit stood alone in a big stretch of lawn, so that its
perfection might be clearly seen. Lawson had excellent taste, or he
had had the best advice.
The butler told me that his master was expected home shortly, and took
me into the library for tea. Lawson had left his Tintorets and Ming
pots at home after all. It was a long, low room, panelled in teak
half-way up the walls, and the shelves held a multitude of fine
bindings. There were good rugs on the parquet door, but no ornaments
anywhere, save three. On the carved mantelpiece stood two of the old
soapstone birds which they used to find at Zimbabwe, and between, on an
ebony stand, a half moon of alabaster, curiously carved with zodiacal
figures. My host had altered his scheme of furnishing, but I approved
the change.
He came in about half-past six, after I had consumed two cigars and all
but fallen asleep. Three years make a difference in most men, but I
was not prepared for the change in Lawson. For one thing, he had grown
fat. In place of the lean young man I had known, I saw a heavy,
flaccid being, who shuffled in his gait, and seemed tired and listless.
His sunburn had gone, and his face was as pasty as a city clerk's. He
had been walking, and wore shapeless flannel clothes, which hung loose
even on his enlarged figure. And the worst of it was, that he did not
seem over-pleased to see me. He murmured something about my journey,
and then flung himself into an arm-chair and looked out of the window.