Poppy Part 49

If Poppy had been a bread-and-b.u.t.ter woman she might have been happy, too, in some fashion, within the trim, well-ordered confines of comfortable mediocrity. But it was not there that her desire lay. She had tasted of the wine and fruit of life--Love, and wanderings in far lands, and vagabondage. Bread-and-b.u.t.ter could never satisfy her again.

Work was wine, too. She felt the fire of it circling in her veins, even when wearied out she flung her books and pencils from her and ran out to the sea. And play was wine--when on some lovely evening she arrayed herself amazingly, took rickshaw and Miss Allendner and ascended the wide, sloping road that led to Clem Portal's home on the Berea.

The Portals' social circle varied, because it was constantly being enlarged or decreased by the comings and goings of travellers and visitors; for, besides knowing everyone worth knowing in South Africa, they could beckon friends and acquaintances from the four poles. Add to this that they were both charming, witty, cultivated people, with the true Irish love for bestowing hospitality and the true Irish grace in bestowing it, and it will be easily understood that all delightful and interesting people who came to South Africa sought them as the bee seeks clover.

As a background to new faces could always be found those of fixed and steadfast friends--Mrs. Cap.r.o.n's--the de Greys'--the Laces'. Always Carson, when he came to Natal; and Abinger, because he was both interesting and something of a crony of Bill Portal's.

A sprinkling of Durban people came and went.

Evening is a pleasant time in Natal, and the Portals' moonlit gardens and lawns and long verandahs lent themselves agreeably to strolling people, tired of the clang and glare of the day. With someone always at the piano to sprinkle the still air with melody, it was pleasant to saunter, the dew in your hair and all the sounds of the night-things about you, while you talked with someone whose interest interested you, or gossiped of life as it could, or would, or might be, or of "Home,"

meaning England, which through the glamour of an African night seems the moon of all men's Desire. There are more intense sudden joys in Life than these, but few more poignantly sweet.

To be Mrs. Portal's friend was to share her friends, to know them, to gossip with them, to criticise and be in turn criticised by them.

Sport, books, music, pictures, people--all that goes to the making of life worth the living, came under discussion; and in Africa, where everyone is using every sense of mind and body, living and feeling every moment of life, there are always new things to be said on these subjects--or perhaps only things that are so many centuries old that they sound new. Truth, after all, is older than the everlasting hills.

Naturally, there was never much grouping. General conversation has more than a liability to plat.i.tude, or, at best, to flippancy, and the finest talking is never done in groups, but _tete-a-tete_. Indeed, it is on record by a thinker of some importance that the best things men say are said to women who probably don't understand them:

"To the women who didn't know why (And now we know they could never know why) And did not understand."

That is as may be. Remains the fact that the best talkers (apart, of course, from orators, politicians, and professional diners-out) do not talk for a crowd, and the most potent phrases and epigrams--when epigrams are not _vieux jeu_--are made for one, or at the most, two listeners.

Poppy's ears took in many pretty and many witty things.

Bill Portal was a blithe soul, overflowing with gay parables and maxims for the unwise, whom he claimed to be the salt of the earth.

Abinger was epigrammatic, sardonic, and satanic, and he never asked for more than one listener--a woman for preference, as she would certainly repeat what he said--and there were other reasons. But the women of the Portals' circle recognised a serpent when they met him, however leafy the garden, and always preferred to listen to his wisdom in twos and threes. With Poppy he never encompa.s.sed any talk at all, unless she felt Clem strong at her back. He smiled at this: the smile of the waiting man to whom everything cometh at last.

Nick Cap.r.o.n never graced the a.s.semblies with his handsome dissipated presence. His l.u.s.t was for poker and his fellow-men--which meant the Club and small hours. He was never even known to fetch his wife. But many a man was pleased and honoured to do his duty for him. Sometimes she stayed all night with her friend Clem. Sometimes Carson took her home in a rickshaw.

The women with attentive husbands pitied her amongst themselves; but she gave no sign of discontent, and they never ventured to offer sympathy.

Invariably she looked wonderfully beautiful--and, therefore, it was not necessary for her to exert herself to much conversation. Since Poppy's soft thrush-note had first been heard in Clem Portal's verandah, Mrs.

Cap.r.o.n's laugh had been silent: though it was a pretty laugh, too. But her smile was as alluring as the sound of a silvery brooklet, and sometimes the sympathetic wives trembled when they saw their husbands lingering near her--not to talk, but to look. She sat so fearlessly under bright light, and looked so flawlessly good. It was, indeed, a comfort to remember that she was as good as she looked, or she would not be Mrs. Portal's closest friend. It was remembered, too, that she had never tried to beguile any woman's man away from her.

When one wife after another had ceased to tremble for her man, realising that this Circe did not use her toils, they rewarded her by saying amongst themselves that it must be sad to be so _cold_. This warmed the coldest of them--with a glow of self-satisfaction.

Mary Cap.r.o.n did not bother about any of them. The riddle she sought to read was Rosalind Chard. Always she watched Poppy, and pondered where she had seen her before. Poppy suspected this, but it did not agitate her. She had prepared another soft-answer-warranted-not-to-turn-away-wrath if Mary Cap.r.o.n should attack her in the open again. But Mary Cap.r.o.n, if she was not witty, was wise. She was no fencer, and had no intention of encountering Miss Chard's foil with the b.u.t.ton off. She preferred to choose her own weapon, time, and place, and to pursue the little duel in her own fashion. She was merely "getting her hand in" when she said to Abinger, looking dreamily at Poppy the while:

"Did you ever hear of a Sphinx without a secret?"

"It's what Wilde taxed the modern society woman with being, I believe,"

he answered idly; he was easily one of the best-read men in Africa. "But it would not apply out here."

"No," she said dreamily. "Everyone has a secret in this country, haven't they? even girls."

At another time she and Carson were near when Poppy, with her arm in Clem's, presented Luce Abinger with a suave answer, so heavily encrusted with salt, that even his seasoned tongue went dry. However, his impertinence had warranted punishment, so he bore it as best he might.

And Clem's tact oiled the troubled waters.

But Mary Cap.r.o.n said something to Carson that kept him awake that night.

"She's _quite_ clever, isn't she? Only it's a pity she has to begin at the beginning for herself."

Carson had scarcely been struck by Miss Chard's _cleverness_--considering that on both his first and second meeting with her she had had odd lapses of something very like _gaucherie_. But he thought her interesting, arresting, and beautiful. He knew of no reason why he should think of her at all; but he sometimes found her face and her voice amongst his thoughts and considered the fact a curious and rather annoying thing.

And the sight and sound of her had an extraordinary power at times to rouse to active, vivid life, a dream of the past that was old grief and pain.

Circ.u.mstance sometimes threw them together in the verandahs or out under the Southern-Cross flaming above the garden, and Poppy's low laugh might be heard mingling with his voice; but she did not always laugh because she was amused.

Carson's silver tongue could take on an amazingly sharp edge. Being an Irishman, he was a law unto himself, with a fine taste for unconventionality in other people. But if he knew South Africa from one end to the other, he also knew men and cities, and the rules that govern women all the world over. Gradually he had become to be aware that Miss Chard outraged the most important of these by being both uncla.s.sifiable and mysterious. Even in what calls itself society in South Africa, women and their belongings and connections must be above-board and open to inspection. An unattached woman has got to prove her right to social status there, as elsewhere. If she cannot, she must prepare to take the consequences--and the least unpleasant of these is to have the worst believed of her.

Of course, Rosalind Chard was backed by Mrs. Portal, but that did not prevent tongues from wagging.

Carson took it upon himself to let Miss Chard know something of these things whenever Fate ordained that he and she should walk under the stars together.

It was wittily done, by the delicate instrumentality of chosen implication, and it never missed the mark: the arrow quivered in Poppy every time. Hot and cold, with sudden rages and terrors, she would turn on him only to find the strange eyes so pleasantly indifferent; his expression so guileless that it was hard to suspect him of malicious intent. Her refuge was a little laugh. Carson told himself sardonically that the game amused him. It may have done so. Doubtless Indians were amused when they threw barbs at their staked victims. But as a fact, something more than an Indian sense of humour would have been appeased in him, if, instead of the brave smile that flickered across his victim's face, or the little dry retort that her lips gave out even while they quivered, she had answered him haughtily with the pride of race or family or position--the pride of _anything with a root to it_.

That was the important point: what were the roots of Rosalind Chard?

That she had pride was plain enough--the fine pride of courage; the pride of a slim, strong young tree that stands firm in winds that tear and beat, flaunting a brave green pennon.

But what was the name of the tree? In what strange garden had it first grown? Was it of a garden at all? Or a highway? Whence came the suggestion that it had bloomed in the desert?

Carson scarcely realised that he fiercely desired information on these matters. He supposed it to be curiosity about a pretty and interesting girl--pure curiosity. He had heard things said, a word dropped here and there--mostly by women, and he knew that harsh winds had begun to blow round the young slim tree with the brave green pennon.

So out of _pure curiosity_ he tormented her when opportunity arose; and she--gave him witty, gentle little restrained answers, with her hand against her heart when the shadows allowed. Or if she could touch a tree she had greater strength to bear her torment and to laugh more easily.

Of all the rest she was careless. Let them think what they would--Clem was her friend.

If her personality and appearance had been less fascinating, probably the gossip about her mysterious appearance in Durban without friends or connections, or a known home, would have died a natural death. But with her first coming to Clem's house, her loveliness seemed to have grown.

In the heat of a room there was a dewiness about her that began in her eyes, and was wonderfully refreshing to the jaded spirit. In the chill of the late evening she seemed to glow with a warmth that was cheering to the coldest heart. Unfortunately, she sometimes forgot to be conventional and ordinary in little social matters. Clem never took notice of such trivialities, but Mrs. Cap.r.o.n and the other women would raise delicate eyebrows and even the men exchange inscrutable glances.

One day Mrs. Cap.r.o.n said:

"Clem, didn't you tell me that Miss Chard was a Cheltenham College girl?" in an incredulous voice. (It is not always convenient to be faced with your statements made at a pinch.)

"Mary," was the answer, after a little pause, "that girl has got a wound that bleeds inwardly, and has spent her life trying to hide it from the world. She has had no time to notice the little conventionalities and ba.n.a.lities that count with us."

"One wonders sometimes if she ever had the opportunity--that is all. She walked into the dining-room ahead of Lady Mostyn and everybody else last night----"

Clem winced; then, remembering Lady Mostyn's outraged face, laughed.

"Well, one hardly picks up those things at school, _cherie_--and she may have been on a desert island ever since."

"That would be an interesting reason for her bad manners, darling, but----"

"I won't admit that they are bad--only unusual; and, besides, she has the excuse of genius. If I might only tell you what I know of her work----"

"_Miniatures?_" asked Mrs. Cap.r.o.n wickedly.

"No: lovey-dovey darling--don't tease and don't be uncharitable--you are much too beautiful to be a cat. Some day that girl will burst forth upon us all in the glory of fame."