The Claw Part 10

"There's a lot of dirty work attached to an expedition and some one's got to do it," Gerry Deshon said. "Blow and Kinsella are up to their eyes, and a lot of the other fellows here are experienced men in wars with n.i.g.g.e.rs. None of us would be of much use at present."

"It takes all sorts of men to make a war. Perhaps if we are no good _now_ we may be when the fighting comes along."

I was rather attracted by this quiet, modest little statement made by Maurice Stair.

Every one walked home with every one else as usual, and discussed what they should do the next day to kill time. In the absence of any authority some bold spirits reverted to the moonlight-picnic plan for the next evening, but a man said decidedly:

"No good! Kim has got down some inside information from headquarters, and won't let the horses a mile away from the town."

An important resolution that we should all meet at the tennis-court the following afternoon was pa.s.sed, and my sister-in-law was invited to invite every one to supper and cards in the evening.

"Oh, very well," said she, swathed in languor as usual. "But I've no genius for entertainment. You'll have to fish for your supper."

"All right, we will," they blithely cried, and announced to me, "You can bank on us, Miss Saurin. We'll be there."

I did not doubt the fact, but it failed to interest me. I, too, was wrapped in weariness. Life in Africa seemed to me to be inconceivably petty.

CHAPTER SIX.

LOVE CALLS.

"Ah, Love! there is no better thing than this, To have known love, how bitter a thing it is."

On the Fort George side of the court next day I noticed a woman I had not seen before. She was handsome and rather extraordinary looking, and had a number of men talking to her; but the did not join the Fort George ladies, and for their part they took no notice of her at all. I wondered why, for they had struck me as being pleasant, friendly souls, kindly disposed to all the world.

She had rather a sallow skin, that made her brilliant hair and bright red mouth all the more amazing; and there was an odd, defiant air about her, yet something curiously wistful in the glances she sent across the court at me from her murky brown eyes. She laughed a great deal with the men talking to her, but I thought her laugh a little too merry. In a tailor-made fashion she was exceedingly well dressed--quite the best turned out woman I had seen so far, though Anna Cleeve certainly knew how to put on her clothes if she only had any to put on. I wondered why this pretty woman was unhappy, for even in my limited experience I had discovered that it is generally the woman who has missed happiness, who tries to fill in the little round hole in her heart with clothes--the smartest and prettiest she can find. Happy women usually have too much in their lives to bother about making a fine art of dressing. Of course, with girls it is different; they naturally love pretty clothes and they have a right to them.

I wished she would come round to our side of the court and let me see her properly, but she did not. Later I observed that the rest of the women only looked at her when she was not looking; at other times they looked through her and past her and over her. At last I became aware that she was taboo. Even the men who stood about her were not the nicest men, and I observed that no one went from our side to speak to her, except Major Kinsella, who, as soon as he arrived, shook hands and stood talking for some little time, at which her pleasure was obvious; afterwards the looks she cast at the other women were more defiant than ever. Consumed with curiosity I addressed a query to Judy sitting next to me.

"That person?" said she, looking another way. "She calls herself Rookwood, I believe."

"What has she done?" I asked. It was so very evident that the poor wretch had done something.

"Oh, don't ask _me_," said Judy in a far-away voice. But Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, who sat on my other side, was not so reserved.

"Do you see that big fair man with her? That is Captain Rookwood.

Handsome, isn't he? _She lives with him_."

"Do you mean she is married to him?"

"Married to him--not at all. She is married to a man called Geach, in Cape Town, but she ran away from him with George Rookwood, and they have been living together for six months now. Her husband by way of revenge refuses to divorce her. Isn't it insolent of her to come here amongst _us_?"

"Of course she always has a dozen men round her," Judy supplemented in a low voice; "they do so love a _decla.s.see_ woman, don't they?"

Afterwards I learnt that the man Geach was an enormous brute of a half-Dutch colonial, who drank, and had been in the habit of beating his wife constantly, and had once dragged her all through the streets of Claremont by her amazing hair. Another time he had dipped her in the sea before a crowd of people, and had afterwards been horsewhipped by the crowd.

Of course, both as a Catholic and as a _femme du monde_ I was _agacee_ at these things. I knew that none of Mrs Geach's sufferings singly or together const.i.tuted any excuse for her running away with another man who happened to love her and would be good to her. It was to be supposed that she knew this, too, and that if she did such a terrible thing she would not only be committing a mortal sin, but must thereafter be struck off the rolls and disqualified for any kind of social life.

However, she had chosen to do it; so now she had a merry laugh and a defiant mouth, and gave more attention to her clothes than most women.

In spite of her sins I could not help being thankful that there is no law, religious or worldly, that forbids one to feel sorry for wistful-eyed sinners. Also, I began to dislike Mrs Skeffington-Smythe very much indeed. It struck me that she arrogated altogether too much holiness to herself, and that a little charity and loving-kindness would not be out of place in her moral make-up. I was mentally arranging something polite with a bite in it to say to her, when Major Kinsella came and sat down beside me in the chair Judy had just left, and after that I was too busy arranging polite bites for _his_ benefit to remember Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and her malice.

It had been raining all the morning, drenching, thudding rain that flooded the land with small lakes and rushing rivulets; the first taste of the "wet season," every one said, though it was not really due until November. I had looked forward disconsolately to a dreary afternoon indoors. But by two o'clock every trace of wetness had disappeared with the extraordinary haste that distinguishes the drying up of the rain in the High Veldt. Only the freshly washed land gave up a ravishing odour tinder the hot sunshine, and the sky above was a turquoise plain, across which some giant hand had moved, sweeping all the billowy clouds into one great ma.s.s in the west. There they lay piled one above the other in snowy splendour. A blaze of hot light poured down on to the court, making the women droop and blench in their chairs. But my veins sang with delight. Never had I known such delicious heat, and I loved it, and felt like a marigold flaring and revelling in the golden shine. It seemed to me that I had never really been alive before I felt the heat of the African sun. I said so to Anthony Kinsella, and his blue eyes flashed at me.

"You will never be able to live away from it now."

I laughed, but I suddenly felt the clutching thrill again.

"Oh, one could not live here always," I said abruptly. "Away from music, and books, and great speakers, and sculpture, and pictures--"

"The veldt is full of pictures--look at that one." He glanced at the turquoise plain and the billowy clouds. "And can you tell me you have never heard its music--on the banks of a river under the stars?"

I could tell him nothing. I could only look away from his eyes.

"Great speakers!" he mused. "You must hear Cecil Rhodes some day telling the boys to extend the Empire."

I did not speak.

"Books and sculpture--they are good, but 'has life nothing better to give than these'?"

"I don't think so," I said firmly, but found myself adding a moment later, "I am not sure."

He answered, "Africa will make you sure. She has a way of making it worth one's while to stay with her. And if she loves you she will just put you in bonds and keep you, whether you will or no."

"She can never do that to me," I said, almost vehemently. "I am too _exigeante_, and I do not like bonds. Let us pray that she will not love me." I essayed to laugh lightly, but my heart was beating in my throat, and an unaccountable agitation shook me. It seemed ridiculous to be so moved about nothing, sitting out there in the steaming sunshine with all life smiling. We were both staring before us away across the court and its players to the amethystine hills on the edge of the world.

He did not look at me, nor I at him, but in a low voice that none but I could hear he said a strange thing:

"For your sake I could go back to prayers--but do not ask me to pray that."

Mrs Valetta came in to look at the mirror as I was hunting for something for dinner.

"You needn't change," she said. "Just turn in the collar of your dress and sling a fichu round your neck. I'll lend you one if you haven't got one." She had something in her hand that looked like the tail of an old ball-gown.

"Oh, no, thank you," I said fervently. "I have too much respect for a good gown to treat it in that fashion."

I made haste to spread upon the bed a little black lace frock that I had brought for ordinary home use to wear in the evenings. Judy strolled in and gazed dejectedly at it.

"Every one will think it fearfully sidey of you to wear that," she said at last, quite animatedly for her.

"Oh, but I am sidey," I announced, laughing. For some reason I did not understand I felt as though I had a happy red robin in the place where my heart used to be. But Judy and Mrs Valetta met my gaiety with scowls. I tried to propitiate them, for I felt kindly disposed to all the world.

"It is not really an evening gown, only a little demi-toilette--long sleeves and a V; and I have nothing else. Still, I won't wear it if you have any _real_ objection, Judy."

But already her interest in the matter was dead. As for Mrs Valetta, she had left the room utterly sick of life. I hardly recognised her for the same woman half an hour later, when I went in to dinner and found her seated there,--in a chrysanthemum-chiffon gown covered with Indian embroideries. Her corsage was composed of about three sequins, a piece of chiffon the size of a handkerchief, and a large diamond brooch.

Annabel Cleeve and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, who were dining with us, were also _en grande tenue_. My poor little black lace frock would have looked quite dowdy amongst them if it had not happened to be of such a distinguished cut. Even Judy had slung an evening gown of sorts upon her languid bones.