Poppy Part 13

Neither will Brammie, if it comes to that. He is an _awfully_ nice man--everybody likes him, and he's fearfully rich too. He's married, and his wife lives in England for her health, they say, but of coa.r.s.e that must be all rot. Anyway, he never goes into society at all--only has men friends."

"Well, what does he want here?" asked Miss Chard calmly, watching the flushed face before her.

"Nothing--nothing at all. It's only a matter of business, and a friendly interest in me, and all that--and, you see, as he employs me as well as Brookie, I have to be civil and ask him to tea sometimes."

It seemed to Miss Rosalind Chard that there was more in this than met the eye, but she was not able to fathom it at present. However, after listening to another long description of Mr. Bramham's inoffensiveness, she consented at last to be at the house one afternoon when he called.

"As for Brookie----" began Sophie, ready to open up another chronicle of guilelessness.

"No, no! I won't meet Brookie, I absolutely jib at Brookie!"

Sophie became lugubrious. "But he knows that you were to have arrived to-day----"

"Well," said Miss Chard decidedly. "Tell him that I came, but that I am as ugly as a monkey and as old as the sea. And now I must go, or my--aunt will be looking for me. I shall try and come in to-morrow and take a lesson on the typewriter. What time will be best?"

"You'll have to teach yourself, my dear. I go to the office every morning at ten, and I lunch in West Street, and don't get back until above five in the afternoon. But I'll bring you all the MSS. there is no immediate hurry for--and you can do it one day and I'll take it back the next. We shall get along like one o'clock."

"That's all settled then; good-bye!" Miss Chard had stepped out of the room into the verandah and was gone before Sophie could remove her high heels from the bars of the chair in front of her, where she had hooked them for extra ease and comfort. Inadvertently she listened for the click of the gate. But the gate did not click. Miss Chard, having got out of view of both house and gate, made a dash for the tall green hedge on the right side of the garden. Stooping down, she instantly disappeared.

A few moments later Poppy Destin sat in the pa.s.sion-leaved summer-house, delicately smoking a cigarette and brushing all traces of dust from her thin black muslin gown. Between little puffs of smoke she presently spoke to herself.

"Certainly she is a terror ... a common mind, terrible clothes, Colonial slang ... I don't know that I can put up with her at all ... and those awful Brookies and Brammies! ... but it will be useful to be able to go through her garden whenever I want to make a little excursion into the world ... and, of course, I couldn't be there without some right or reason ... besides, it will be splendid to learn typewriting, and do all my own writing ready to send to the publishers ... but what a room! ...

and those roses in her hat! Can such things be?... I must go and see whether Kykie has my tea ready."

A few days later it would have been hard to recognise the sitting-room of Sophie Cornell's little green bungalow. Books had spread themselves about the room, the tawdrinesses had been removed, flowers were everywhere, and a fine vine in a long gla.s.s crept delicately up the side of the mirror above the mantel. When Poppy had hinted that she would like to change the room a little, Sophie had good-naturedly given her _carte-blanche_ to do anything she wished, saying:

"It was not _my_ taste either, you know; but the place was furnished when I came into it and I haven't bothered to do anything since."

The only things Miss Cornell would not allow to be banished were the photographs of her numerous admirers, which she insisted on ranging along the narrow wooden ledge running round the room above the dado.

They were in all degrees of preservation--some of them yellow with age or exposure, some quite new; all were autographed and inscribed. Some of the inscriptions ran thus: "From your loving Jack"; "To the best girl I know"; "To one of the best from one of the worst," etc. It was to be observed that the most ardent _mots_ were merely initialled. But Sophie was equally proud of them all, and would exhibit them on the smallest provocation, giving a short narrative-sketch of each person which included the most striking features of his character, together with a thrilling account of his pa.s.sion for her and the reason why she did not marry him.

"Now, isn't _he_ good looking? Such a dear boy too ... and _generous_!

My dear, that man would have given me the boots off his feet ... but there--he had no money; what was the good?... He's in Klond.y.k.e now ... I do hope he'll have luck, poor boy...."

"This is Captain Halkett. No, I don't know his regiment, and he never would give away his photos in uniform, though he had some perfectly lovely ones.... Someone told me he was a 'cashier' in the Army ... but that was silly, of course ... there are no such things as cashiers in the Army, _are_ there? ... he simply adored me ... he gave me this bangle ... such a darling ... but he was married--or, _of course_----"

"Oh, _that_ is Jack Truman, of Kimberley. Everyone knows _him_ ... a fearful devil, but most fascinating.... Isn't he handsome? ... such eyes ... you simply couldn't look into them, they made you blush all over. The women were all crazy after him, but he told me he didn't give a pin for any of them except me.... He wanted me to run away with him ... but he had a wife in a lunatic asylum ... obliged to allow her forty pounds a month, and he was _dreadfully_ in debt ... they tried to arrest him at Cape Town, but he got away dressed like a woman ... and now he is in the Australian Mounted Police, they say.

"And, _of course_, you know who this is? One of the biggest men on the Rand ... with _thousands_, my dear.... Och! you should see him in riding kit ... you never saw any one look so perfectly _n.o.ble_ ... he was _madly_ in love with me ... everybody said so ... he told me I was the only girl who could ever keep him straight ... but he behaved rather badly.... I always believe some snake of a woman made mischief ... and when he went to England, one of those English girls snapped him up ...

they live out at Jeppestown now ... and they say she's the _living image_ of me ... funny, isn't it?... but I think it just proves how he adored me, don't you?"

Listeners of defective vision and an over-developed sense of credulity might have believed that Helen of Troy II had come to town--unless they had been long enough in South Africa to realise that the best way to enjoy a little quiet humour is to take a Cape-Colonial girl at her own valuation.

Poppy listened to all with tranquil eyes. She was willing to believe that it might be true that Sophie was admired and adored and desired.

But in the type of men who formed the army of admirers and adorers and desirers she could not pluck up the faintest kind of interest. It seemed to her that it was impossible that any man worth knowing could forgive the size of Sophie's hands and the shape of her feet, the look about her mouth, the paint on her face, and the dust in her hair.

She was aware, however, that life in South Africa is too busy and too eventful to allow men much time for digging into personality--and that it has to suffice, as a rule, if the surface-metal shines pleasantly and looks like the real thing. Sophie's surface, no doubt, had an attractive glitter, but Poppy felt sure that if anyone with the time and inclination for such occupation had ventured to go a-quarrying into the nature of Sophie Cornell, the output would be found to be surprising, even in a land where surprises are every-day fare and the unexpected is the only thing that ever happens.

CHAPTER IV

In the meantime all went well. Secure in the knowledge that Abinger was away for some weeks, that Kykie would never search for her except at meal-times, every day found Poppy spending four or five hours at her new occupation--typewriting. She had determined that she would master this art before she went adventuring further into the world that lay beyond Sophie Cornell's gate.

Sometimes she would arrive before ten in the morning, in time to see Sophie depart, gloriously arrayed, with the air of one due at the same garden-party as royalty.

When she inspected the huge rolls of work which Sophie invariably brought back, she would sometimes wonder if the latter had indeed been to a garden-party and never put in at the office at all, except to fetch the MSS.

The little house in the morning hours was always calm and peaceful.

Through the trees of the garden Poppy could hear the world go buzzing by--the grating of the tram-cars on the lines, the clatter of horses, and the hiss of wheels going down hill, and an occasional street cry. No one ever came down the little pathway. Only the click of the machine, the voices of Zambani and Piccanin, busy with the pots and the pans in the kitchen and yard, broke the silence; or Poppy's trilling whistle as she corrected her proofs. By half-past twelve there would be piles of neat ma.n.u.script ready for Sophie to take back the next day, and Poppy would be speeding home through her own garden to luncheon. Sometimes in the afternoon she would finish early, and, going out into the kitchen, would toast buns and prepare the tea, and Sophie, coming home at five o'clock, would find it laid cool and dainty among flowers on the long table.

One day, when Poppy had arrived almost directly after lunch, with the idea of getting in a long afternoon at her own work, she was disagreeably surprised to find Sophie stalk in a few moments later, flushed and handsome, and bringing with her a large bale of papers and the faint but unmistakable odour of good cigars.

Poppy's little nose went up and a warmth ran through her; the smell of a good cigar unaccountably roused in her a vivid interest in life. For a moment she slightly envied Sophie, but a glance at the brilliant languid eyes and heavy mouth changed her mind, and singularly inspired her with the thought that good cigars were probably often smoked by hateful men.

"Would you like me to order you a cup of tea, Sophie?" she asked presently.

"No, thanks!" said Sophie, languidly stretching herself in a chair. "I couldn't drink tea. I've had a most tiring morning. Brookie brought Nick Cap.r.o.n in, and they simply _wouldn't_ let me work."

After which calmly contradictory statement, she closed her eyes and fanned herself with a legal-looking doc.u.ment, chosen for its stiffness from among the papers she had brought, and which were now at sixes and sevens upon the floor.

At the name "Nick Cap.r.o.n," Poppy gave a little start. How well she remembered the day she had heard that name from the lips of a beautiful woman in Bloemfontein! Could this Nick Cap.r.o.n possibly be the "most fascinating man in Africa" whom the gold-haired heroine was going to marry? She must try and discover.

"I think a cup of tea would refresh you, Sophie," she presently said.

"_Och ni vat!_ I can't eat or drink when I get worn out like this--I become a perfect wreck."

Poppy surveyed the healthy, not to say opulent proportions stretched before her, and could not forbear to smile.

"Oh, you should keep up your strength," she said, with irony entirely thrown away.

"The only thing that would be the _slightest_ use to me, now," announced Sophie, "is a gla.s.s of champagne--and, of course, I can't have that."

Poppy began to pore over her ma.n.u.script. She was in the mood for work and hated not to take advantage of it.

"I wish I were rich enough to drink champagne whenever I am tired," was Miss Cornell's next contribution; and Poppy laughed without being amused.

"You'd soon be bored with that."

"Never!" said Miss Cornell fervently; then relapsed into languor.

"I hope those papers are not important, Sophie, they are blowing all over the room."

"Yes, they're _very_ important. They're all about a Malay abduction case which a friend of Brookie's is defending in the Courts next week. It's the greatest fun, Brookie and Cap.r.o.n were shrieking over it this afternoon."