The Claw Part 31

Not only was I to stay longer in this fateful land, but must turn my feet towards the bleak portion of it that had robbed me directly and indirectly of all I held dear in life. In that moment I strove to draw back from the barren promise I had given Maurice Stair, telling him in burning words that he was not keeping faith with me; that I had promised to marry him but that his part of the contract was to take me from the country without delay. I resented and resisted with all the strength left in me; but that was no great amount. Strength of will, and many other things seemed to have died in me on the night I took from his palm that little blue turquoise. So his humble pleadings and arguments prevailed.

I said to myself--why, being so wretched, make another equally so? and sought with prayers and weeping for courage to take up my life afresh and face my empty fate. And in some measure at last I found it, and strength to cry with Stevenson:

"Come ill or well, the cross, the crown, The rainbow or the thunder, I fling my soul and body down For G.o.d to plough them under."

I planned with myself a fine new plan of life. If mine must be empty of the sweet personal pa.s.sionate love that every girl thinks her rightful due then I would fill it with a big altruistic love for all the world.

Like Heine, out of my great sorrows I would make little songs. I would live a life of gentle sacrifice to the exigencies of others, of unselfish devotion to all that was best and most beautiful in the characters of the people with whom I came in touch. Surely that would bring some solace and sweetness in the many years! I thought of faces I had seen with stories of sorrow carved upon them that were yet most n.o.ble and beautiful; and I said, mine shall be a face like that when I am old. Of the first few years I expected little but lost battles and "broken hopes for a pillow at night," but surely in time, in time, after much stumbling and rising again to the fight, victory would come, and peace from the pa.s.sionate ache of youth. Perhaps in the end that peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding would descend like dew upon my parched soul--and give me rest from the pain of love unfulfilled. I could not die, I would live for others. Gold for silver!

These were the thoughts and plans that I took to the altar, and Maurice Stair, standing by me, so gentle and chivalrous-eyed, so debonair in his khaki and leather, seemed no ill-chosen companion for the path I was setting my feet to.

We were married in travelling-kit. I shrank from putting on all the panoply of a bride, and Maurice, when I asked him, diffidently enough, to let me off white satin and orange blossoms, was perfectly content. I was pleased at the time to find him so careless about outward forms and conventions. Still, I felt it to be only fair to him, and the proper fulfilling of my part of the bargain, to make myself look as charming as possible, so I had a special little white crepe walking-frock made and a wide wavy hat of white lace and roses.

Judy gave me away: Sore as my heart was with her, I had to remember that she was d.i.c.k's wife. Also there was a concession to be paid for unstintingly; she had promised, that because she must live in Buluwayo for the first year of her married life she would let little d.i.c.kie come to me wherever Maurice and I found the lines of our new life laid. I was so thankful to her for this chance of keeping d.i.c.k's boy away from the influence of his step-father that I could almost forget her treason to that big loving heart lying out beyond Salisbury hill. _Almost_--not quite; but at least for the sake of the dead man's son I tried to stifle down my resentment of an act I could not prevent.

So I let her take my hand as we drove to church, and babble to me about how sure she was that I was going to be happy--what a nice fellow Maurice was--every one said so--and so handsome--and five hundred a year apart from his salary--very few men had that out here--they all came out to try and make it by hook or by crook--of course he was nothing like some of the matches I might have made at home--but still--etc.

That aspect of the situation had indeed never occurred to me before, and while she talked I considered it musingly, remembering suddenly that there were indeed others I might have married. I wondered, vaguely then for the first time, how I came to be marrying a man I knew so little of as Maurice Stair when there were men at home who, to use their own words, were "always to hand if I should change my mind at any time."

But Maurice was to hand too! He had in fact been right at hand, with a plan for a useless, broken life at a moment when there seemed to be nothing left to do but die. And there was something almost like a tie between us in the knowledge that we shared of Anthony's fate; and in the fact that he was the first to go forth to seek news for me. True I could not thank him for such news as he brought; but somehow he seemed almost sanctified to me in being the bearer of that little fateful blue stone I wore against my heart; the last thing Anthony had worn: the last tangible trace of him on earth!

Oh, yes, there were reasons, bitter cruel reasons why I should repay the love and service of Maurice Stair, inasmuch as a loveless wife and the empty sh.e.l.l of a heart could repay him. It seemed a poor bargain for a man of thirty with ambitions for a great career, and all the world before him, to make and be content with; but he never ceased to a.s.sure me of his content, so the least I could do was to refrain from the gracelessness of reminding him of it. And indeed I meant to do my part for his career, at least. When his uncle had once launched him in the Consular service well I knew that he would find no wife more able for that kind of life than I who had been practically trained to society: with my upbringing and knowledge of the world and its ways, with a heart empty of any thing but ambition for my husband I could go far and I meant to--in return for being wrenched from the claw of Africa!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

WHAT A JEWELLER MADE.

"The truth is rarely pure, and never simple."

So Maurice Alexander Stair and I were married.

After the ceremony we drove back to Kentucky Hills, and shared with a few friends the pretty breakfast Judy had arranged for us.

Later they all rode away, and Maurice with them, leaving me to pack for our exeunt that afternoon to a little place called Water-lily Farm. It was the home of a fellow N.C. of Maurice's; he had just prepared it for his wife who was coming out from home, but with the ready good-fellowship so common in Africa had offered it to Maurice for our honeymoon; and we, both anxious that the world should guess nothing of our strange bargain, had accepted it to stay in and spend the first few days of our married life.

Maurice was delayed in Salisbury, and it was late afternoon before he fetched me at last from my brother's house.

The pale May sunshine was almost as cheerless as that of an early spring day in England, for the winter was coming on rapidly, and winter in Africa can be very bleak indeed. I was glad to wrap myself in a warm coat and lean back in the shelter of the little tented cart we were to make the journey in. It was only large enough for two, and Maurice, obliged to manage the restive horses, had little time to talk, for which I was curiously thankful. Pa.s.sing through Salisbury he discovered that he had left his watch at his rooms and asked if I would mind his calling there for it. I made no demur of course, only, knowing that he lived in a row of bachelor chambers almost next door to the Club, I stipulated that he should pull up a few hundred yards away. I had driven and ridden past the Club before, and knew something of the _insouciant_ curiosity of its members, and their happy habit of filling the verandah of sound of a horse or wheels.

"They're rather fresh," hesitated Maurice as I took the reins.

"Oh, Maurice! Do you think I can't manage two old Mashonaland nags?" I smiled.--So he left me, and as I watched him go, tall, nonchalant, and graceful, taking long strides over the knolly ground, I asked myself if it could really be true that I was married, and that--my husband!

Frogs were beginning to croak in the swampy marsh between the Kopje and the Causeway. I could hear far-off voices, and see the smoke of others'

homes against the evening sky. But a terrible soul-sickness crept over me: the sickness of a soul that has lost its mate. At that moment I seemed quite alone in the world. Some words of Gordon's that a dying man in Fort George had been fond of muttering flitted through my mind:

"Oh whisper, buried Love, is there rest and peace about!

There is little help or comfort here below!

On your sweet face lies the mould, and your bed is straight and cold--"

Voices and the sound of horses coming along the road broke my dreary reverie. A man's rather sardonic laugh reached me, and a voice I seemed to know, yet could not recall the owner of. The riders were still a long distance off but sounds travel far on the clear high air of Rhodesia, and I presently heard some words as distinctly and plainly as if they were spoken beside me in the cart.

"He is not a fellow I have ever cared about--I found out long ago that he is not straight. Another thing, he's too fond of his little quiet tot by himself.--I like a man that drinks with his fellows--not one of your soakers in his bedroom."

"Well! I'll tell you what _I_ don't like about him, Bell, he hasn't the pluck of a louse--there was a little incident here in Salisbury just after he came up--then again, at Fort George, he played sick with a sprained arm rather than go into Matabeleland with the others. Sprained arm! Sprained grandmother--and I told him so! He slunk out of my office like a dog!"

"It makes me sick to think of him marrying that fine girl."

How careless people are about what they say of others: I mused. Small wonder one's secrets are not one's own in a land where a reputation can be d.a.m.ned on the highroad for all the world to hear!

I had heard a man's honour--all that was worth keeping in this sad old world--dispensed with, in a few cynical but strangely convincing words.

How cruel life was! How tragic! I shivered and wished Maurice would come.

I could see the backs of the two men now as they rode blithely upon their way, having saddened me with the sordid tale of a man's secret sins that were no secret! the story of some poor fellow's stumbling journey down hill instead of up! Men were very pitiless in their judgments I thought. Perhaps the other man was not so despicable after all. But _secret drinking, cowardice_! Those were terrible sins--none more revolting to a woman's mind--and _not straight_; the hardest thing one man can say of another! Surely there had been no such man in Port George!--I had never heard of one, and I had heard most things in that tragic little town.--I could think of no one whom such condemnation, fitted. Monty Skeffington-Smythe perhaps?--but no; _his_ faults were open and above-board for all the world to see--nothing hidden there, not even his preference for _laager_ in time of war! Anyway it was no business of mine--I ought to have been ashamed to be speculating about it even, and I _was_. But why did Maurice stay so long? What could be keeping him?

Some one who _played sick rather than go into Matabeleland_--But they were all so keen.--all except baggy old Dr Abingdon. Ah! now I knew whose voice that was--Dr Abingdon's of course--the _blase_ old doctor with his goat-like leer, and his pretentions that fear kept him from Matabeleland, when as we had found out afterwards he had absolutely begged to go, and been refused on account of his gout--the dear old doctor! His value had been only too well proved in the hospital work he had done later--in the big fights he had put up for men's lives, and won out, when every one else despaired... I had heard of his recent arrival in Salisbury, and was hoping to see him before I left.

With the knowledge that it was he who had been speaking, my curiosity was once more aroused by the words I had heard. Against my will my mind persistently went back again to the subject. Who of all his patients in Port George had a sprained arm. Ah!--_suddenly I remembered_!

Afterwards, all the words I had heard floating so idly on the clear air came back one by one, like little birds of ill-omen, to roost in my memory and sing in my ears. It seemed that my brain had taken down everything in shorthand--there was nothing in that brief conversation that I had forgotten!

When Maurice climbed in beside me and took the reins from my hands he exclaimed at their coldness.

"Good Lord! you're frozen," he said. "Why, it isn't cold!"

As he turned towards me I caught from his lips that faint sickly odour of spirits I had long ago learnt to a.s.sociate with African scenery.

"I am not cold," I said in a voice that in spite of my striving must have given some sign of the inquietude of my soul, for he gave me a curious glance as the horses lunged forward.

"Oh! cheer up, my dear girl, for G.o.d's sake! This is not a funeral."

I was so utterly taken aback at this remark, unlike in tone and words anything I had heard from him before, that for an instant I almost forgot the terror that in the last few moments had crept like a little cold slimy snake about my heart. Suddenly I burst into a convulsive laugh, so strange in sound that it should surely have betrayed me. But no, he did not perceive the _genre_ of my laughter. He was satisfied that I laughed.

"That's right!" he approved, whipping up the horses. "And as soon as we get round the Kopje I'll give you a little whiskey to warm you up. I never drink anything myself, but its a good thing to keep the cold out, and I've brought a bottle with me in case of accidents."

I laughed again then, a merry ringing laugh, extraordinarily like Mrs Rockwood's in the old Fort George days. He lashed at the horses and we tore through the town in clouds of dust. When he made to pull up, almost opposite the cemetery, I clutched spasmodically at his arm.

"Don't stop, Maurice. I don't want whiskey," I stammered. "I--I cannot even bear the thought of spirits. Please, _please_ drive on."

"Oh, very well!" he said in an impatient voice. "All right, if you don't care about it. As I said before, I never drink myself but it is a good thing to keep out the cold."

He turned and observed me with something like suspicion in his manner, and again the faint sickly odour crept past me.

We were travelling now at a slackened speed. There was time and opportunity for conversation, and driven by the cold little snake that wound itself tighter and tighter round my heart, I hastened to make it.

"What detained you, Maurice? You were away a long time!"

"Some brute had been ransacking my room. I found the place in absolute confusion. As far as I could see at a glance not a thing had been stolen, but everything was all over the place--papers, letters, clothes!

I picked up the important things and stuffed them in my pockets, no time to put anything away; besides, all the padlocks had been burst off everything. I think I can guess who it was--a n.i.g.g.e.r I discharged last week, and to punish him took away from him a charm that some witch doctor had given him. That's what he was after, no doubt, but he didn't get it, the brute, for I have it on me, that's some satisfaction. Good G.o.d! what a mess the place was in!"