Blue Aloes Part 13

Everyone agreed that Mrs. Hading must see both of these lovely places.

"I have to go to Selukine anyway, on business," said Mrs. Hading, who had no idea of letting her plan to motor through that district in Druro's company be interfered with by picnics, "so please let it be Sombwelo."

"You can have my ranch there as a base of operations," proffered Lundi, "and make my boys do the work."

They all applauded this except Gay, who submitted that a picnic was not a picnic unless conducted on alfresco lines, with all the cooking and eating done out of doors by the picnickers themselves. Druro understood that she objected to his ranch and was sorry he had spoken, especially as some of the others looked at her with understanding eyes also. However, she was outvoted, everyone crying that if she liked hard work and out-door cooking, and spiders and ants running over the table-cloth and mosquitoes biting her ankles, she could have them, but they would have the ranch. To Druro's surprise and relief, she laughed and gave in quite pleasantly. Being a man, he could not know that, at that very moment, she was dismally deciding that, considering all that had pa.s.sed, she could not possibly go to Druro's ranch.

"I shall have to be taken ill at the last moment," she reflected, and could have wept, for she loved picnics, and Druro's ranch had a secret call for her heart. But she laughed instead, and helped, with a cheerful air, to draw up the lists of those who were to supply cars, chickens, cakes, crockery, and all the other incidentals that go to the making of a successful picnic. The tea-party had by this time become enlarged to the size of a reception, and with everybody talking and arguing at once, no one (except Gay) noticed that, after a little quiet conversation, Mrs. Hading and Druro withdrew and disappeared. It transpired later that they had ordered an early lunch and started for Selukine in the Argyle.

And that was only the beginning of it. In the week that followed, it became more usual to see Mrs. Hading in Lundi Druro's car than out of it.

Gay, staunch to her resolve, absented herself from the festivity at Sombwelo. It was no great exaggeration to plead that she was ill, for her spirit was sick if her body was not. But no one spared her the details of a successful and delightful day. It seemed that Druro had been a perfect host and Mrs. Hading a graceful and gracious guest.

And, from that time forward, never a day pa.s.sed in which the two did not spend some, at least, of its hours together. When Marice was not by Druro's side in the big red car, sometimes learning to drive, sometimes just tearing through the air, _en route_ to some mine or other which she wanted to see, they might be found in the "Falcon"

lounge, playing bridge with another couple or just sitting alone, talking of London lamp-posts. Sometimes they played two-handed poker, for Marice not only sympathized but shared with Druro his pa.s.sion for cards. Perhaps this drew their hearts as well as their heads together.

At any rate, to lookers-on they seemed absorbed in one another.

Mrs. Hading essayed skilfully and very winningly to draw Gay into her intimate circle, and it vexed her to realize how she evaded her plans.

Berlie, she had already subjugated and made a tool of; but Gay stood aloof and would not be beguiled. While perfectly courteous to Mrs.

Hading and whole-heartedly admiring her beauty, she had yet distrusted and disliked her from the first. Now her dislike deepened, for she saw that the widow was harming Druro. She kept him from his work, and sympathized and pandered to the pa.s.sions that already too greatly obsessed him. There were always c.o.c.ktails and cards on the table before them. Druro was drawing closer round him the net of his weaknesses from which Gay had so longed to drag him forth. Between the latter and Lundi Druro there now existed a kind of armed peace which appeared to be based, on his side, in indifference, and, on hers, in pride. There was often open antagonism in their eyes as they faced each other. She despised him for lingering and lagging at the heels of pleasure, and he knew it. Sometimes, when he was not actively angry with her, he thought she had grown older and sadder in a short while, and wondered if she were having trouble about young Derry, who was up-country, or whether old Derek was going the pace more than usual at home. It must be these secret troubles, he thought, that had suddenly changed her from the laughing girl he knew into a rather beautiful but cold woman. Cold, yes, cold as the east wind! Sometimes her clear eyes chilled him like the air of a certain little cold hour of the dawn that he very much dreaded; it was a relief to turn away from them to the warm and subtle scents and frondlike ways of Marice Hading.

For weeks now, he had divided his time so carefully between Mrs. Hading and poker at the club, that there was nothing at all left for the Leopard mine. His partner, M. R. Guthrie, commonly known as "Emma,"

sometimes came from the mine to look for him, pedalling moodily into w.a.n.keloon a bicycle, and always pedalling away more moodily than he came. He was a shrivelled-up American with a biting tongue, and the only man in the country from whom Druro would take back talk.

"What is this wine-woman-and-song stunt you are on now, Lundi?" he inquired, late one night, when he had cornered Druro in the club with a small but select poker-party of the hardest citizens in the country.

Druro gave him a dark glance.

"That's my business," he said curtly.

"Have you any other business?" asked Emma bitterly. "You don't happen to own a mine, I suppose?"

"What are mines compared to jack-pots?" inquired Druro gravely.

"Besides, what are you on that mine for, Emma? A decoration? Or do you think you are my wet-nurse? I don't remember engaging you in that capacity."

Guthrie rose, offended.

"All right, my boy--go to blazes your own way!"

"I can get there without leading-strings, anyway," Lundi retorted cheerfully.

"But not without ap.r.o.n-strings," muttered his partner, departing on the faithful bicycle. "I dunno what's come to the fellow!"

In truth, Druro hardly knew himself. A kind of fever had taken possession of him, a fever of unrest and discontent with himself and all things. He couldn't remember how it began or when, but it seemed to him that life, in one moment, from being interesting and vivid, had turned old and cold and tasted like a rotten apple in his mouth. And he did not care how many drinks he took to wash the flavour away. He knew that he was drinking too much and neglecting his work, and jeopardizing other people's money as well as his own by so doing, but his soul was filled with a bitter carelessness and indifference to these facts. He was anxious not to inquire too deeply within himself on the matter of what ailed him, being dimly aware of a something at the back of his mind that could inform him only too well. He wished to avoid all discussion with that something, sitting like a veiled, watching figure, waiting for some unoccupied hour. Up to now, he had been very successful in dodging the appointment, but he had premonition that he would be caught one of these days soon--in some little cold dawn-hour perhaps.

There came a day when Mrs. Hading decided to return the hospitality shown her in w.a.n.kelo by giving an entertainment of her own. She mentioned her intention lightly to Druro.

"I really must try and arrange to give a little jolly of my own in return for all the big jollies people here have given me."

In reality, she had determined on something in the nature of "a surprise to the natives" that would put all their little picnics and dinner-parties entirely in the shade, and duly impress not only w.a.n.kelo but Rhodesia and, incidentally, Lundi Druro. For, after several weeks of close intercourse with the latter, she had come to the conclusion that she might do very much worse than marry him. More, she actually desired to do so. The stimulus of his insouciant gaiety and originality, good looks and unfailingly good spirits had come to be a necessary part of her existence. She needed him now, like a bracing c.o.c.ktail she had grown used to taking so many times a day and could no longer do without. Besides, the Leopard was panning out well, at the rate of a thousand pounds sterling per month, and had the prospect of doing far better.

These were good enough reasons for Mrs. Hading's decision that Druro, as well as w.a.n.kelo, should be impressed by the finished splendour and grace of her "little jolly." She intended to show him that, when it came to choosing a wife who could spend his thousands graciously and to the best effect, he could never do better than Marice Hading. To which end, she concentrated her whole mind on the purpose of making her entertainment a complete and conspicuous success.

A little group of those people whom she favoured with her intimacy were called into council, theoretically to help her with advice, though in practice she needed little of them but admiring applause. They met every morning in a corner of the lounge which, by introducing her own flowers, books, and cushions, she had made peculiarly hers. Here over morning tea the plans for her "jolly" were projected and perfected, and here were always to be found Berlie Hallett and her mother, Cora Lisle, Johnny Doran, Major Maturin, and one or two lesser but useful lights.

Druro, though he did little more than decorate the a.s.sembly with his good-tempered smile, was a most necessary feature of it, and d.i.c.k Tryon was more often than not to be found there also, though whether he came to scoff or bless, no one was quite certain. His position in the circle of Mrs. Hading's satellites had never been clearly defined. He was supposed by some people to be hopelessly in love with Gay Liscannon, and that supposition alone was enough to make Marice Hading anxious to attach him to her personal staff. Besides, he was an interesting man and a clever lawyer--always a useful combination in a friend. At any rate, he was one of those who helped to applaud the programme of Mrs. Hading's jolly, which she eventually decided was to take the form of a bridge tournament followed by supper and a dance.

This sounds a simple enough affair, but, under Mrs. Hading's treatment, it became rarefied. A chef for the supper had been commanded from Johannesburg, a string orchestra for the dance from Salisbury, and exquisite bridge prizes were being sent from a jeweller's at the Cape.

The hotel dining-room was to be transformed into a salon for the card tournament, the lounge decorated as a ballroom, and an enormous marquee erected for the supper.

The day dawned at last when, all these arrangements being completed, there was nothing for the select council to do but congratulate each other on the prospect of a perfect evening. Druro, however, who had for some days been showing (to the initiated eyes of his male friends, at least) signs of restlessness, not to say boredom, marred the harmony of this propitious occasion by absenting himself, thereby causing the president of the meeting palpable inquietude and displeasure. She missed her laughing cavalier, as she had a fancy for calling him, from her retinue. Plainly _distraite_, she sat twisting her jewelled fingers and casting restless glances toward the door until certain emissaries, who had been sent forth, returned with the news that no one had seen Druro since eleven o'clock the night before, when he had gone off in a car with some mining men. The widow hid her annoyance under a pretty, petulant smile and the remark:

"He must be given a penance this afternoon." After which she abruptly dismissed the audience until tea-time.

When tea-time came, however, with its gathering in Mrs. Hallett's sitting-room (the lounge being in preparation for the evening's festivities), there was still no Druro. Further inquiry had elicited the fact that the men he had gone off with were from the Glendora. The Glendora was a mine owned by an Australian syndicate and run entirely by Australians, a hard-living, hard-drinking crowd, who, by reason of their somewhat notorious ways and also because none of them had wives, were left rather severely alone by the w.a.n.kelo community. One or two of the managers, however, belonged to the club, and it was with these that Druro had disappeared.

Mrs. Hading, whose petulance was not quite so pretty as in the morning, rather gathered than was told these things, and she saw very plainly that she had not gathered all there was to tell. Men have a curious way of standing back to back when women want to find out too much. But she did not need a great deal of enlightening, and when a man said with careless significance, "I expect he has forgotten all about tonight,"

and the other men's eyes went blank, she guessed what was at the bottom of it all. She had learned by now what were the occasions on which Druro so poignantly _forgot_, and she was furious, not because gambling might be bad for his bank account or his immortal soul, but that he should dare to have a more burning interest than herself.

"What about sending someone to remind him?" suggested Maturin. Marice Hading regarded him coldly.

"He is engaged to open the ball with me this evening. I do not think he is likely to forget." There was more than a ring of arrogance in her tone, and, looking straight past him into the eyes of Gay Liscannon, she added acridly, "Whomsoever he may have thus distinguished in the past."

Gay, who, by some mischance, had happened accidentally upon the meeting, was taken off her guard by this direct attack, as the ready flush in her cheek clearly told. A moment later, she was her pale, calm self. But Mrs. Hading saw that her arrow shot at a venture had drawn blood. She really knew nothing of Gay's quarrel with Druro, and her venture was based on a remark Berlie had let fall. But she was aware of a shadow between Gay and Druro that her sharp and curious eyes had never been able to penetrate, and that infuriated her. Tryon, lazily examining his shoes, here interposed a casual remark.

"I am willing to prophesy that what has happened once can happen again--in spite of William De Morgan."

It was Marice Hading's turn to flush.

"If I do not dance with Mr. Druro tonight, it will not be because he is absent," she said, with cold arrogance.

"_Nous verrons,_" he answered agreeably. She gave him an insolent look. He had declared sides at last, and she knew where she stood.

Gay dressed for the dance with but little enthusiasm. Pride made her put aside her longing to stay at home with her own wretchedness--pride and bitter curiosity, but, above all, a haunting fear of what the evening might bring forth. She had a strange premonition that something final and fatal was going to happen to her love for Druro.

It was to be given its death-thrust, perhaps, by the announcement of an engagement between him and the widow. Surely, Marice Hading's significance had meant that if it had meant anything! This fete was to be the scene of her triumph. She meant to brandish Druro as a trophy--fastening him publicly to the wheels of her chariot. Strangely enough, what Gay dreaded still more was that Druro would not turn up at all. She felt a miserable foreboding about the gang at Glendora. And it was based on good grounds. They had once lured her brother Derry out to that camp, and what he had told her of his experiences there had left her with a wholesome dread and detestation of the Australians.

"I wonder I got out with my skin," said Derry. "They rooked me right and left. There isn't a finer set of sharpers outside of Mexico City--and the whole gang ready to eat you up alive if you show by the twitch of an eyelash that you are 'on' to them. There's one pirate there--Capperne--who's worse than all the rest. Nothing can beat him.

You know he's sharping you all the time, but he's so slick you can never catch him out. And it wouldn't be wise to, either."

These were the men that Druro had gone out to play poker with--Lundi Druro, with his love of fair play and easily roused temper and carelessness of consequences. It was a heavy and apprehensive heart that the girl hooked up inside her ball gown.

The "Falcon" was a fairy-land of softly shaded lights and flowers of every shade of yellow and gold. Few flowers except those of the hardiest kinds could be got in any quant.i.ty at w.a.n.kelo, so Mrs. Hading had cleverly decided to use only those of one colour, choosing sunflowers, marigolds, and all the little yellow children of the Zinnia family. These, mingled with the tender green of maidenhair fern, of which quant.i.ties had been obtained from Selukine, ma.s.sed against walls draped with green, made an exquisite setting for her entertainment and her own beauty. She glided here and there among the amber lights, welcoming her guests and setting them at the little green-clad card tables, a diaphanous vision of gold-and-orange chiffons, her perfect neck and shoulders ablaze with diamonds, and her little flat-coiffed black head, rather snakelike on its long throat, banded by a chain of yellow topazes.

Everything blended in the picture she had made for herself, and the picture was perfect to behold. But, unfortunately, the person whom it had been created chiefly to impress was missing. Druro had not come.

The bridge tournament waned to an end, and the dainty and expensive prizes were awarded; the guests flowed in a gentle, happy tide to the supper marquee and partook of such a collation of aspics and salads, and souffles and truffles, and such a divine brew of cup and amazing brand of c.o.c.ktails as w.a.n.kelo had never before dreamed of in its philosophy; then back they ebbed, more happily and hilariously than they had flowed, to the ballroom, where, on the stroke of midnight, the special string orchestra from Salisbury strung out sweet, tremolo opening bars of the first waltz. And Druro had not come!

Mrs. Hading gracefully surrendered herself to the arms of a great man who had been obliging enough to drop in accidentally by the evening train from Buluwayo, and, floating down the room, opened the ball. Her partner was a very great man indeed, both in South African and English politics, and it was a feather of no small jauntiness in Marice Hading's cap that she had been able to secure him for the vacant seat at her supper-table and afterward beguile him to the ballroom and into asking her to dance. His presence lent a final note of distinction to an extraordinarily successful evening, and she had every reason to be proud and triumphant--except one! But it was that one thing that poisoned all. No triumph could quench her rage and humiliation at Druro's defection.

"He shall pay! He shall pay!" were the words that beat time in her brain, all the while she was floating and gliding among her guests, full of graceful, weary words and charming, tired smiles, the only colour in her face showing on her bitter lips.