The Claw Part 7

"Oh, Deirdre, how you startled me! I had quite forgotten about your arriving."

"_Merci, ma cherie_," I laughed, "but I hope your cook has not. One thing Africa has done for me is to provide me with a perpetual appet.i.te.

I don't know yet whether it is a good thing or not."

Having hidden her hands under the counterpane my sister-in-law regained her complacency.

"My dear child, it is a very bad thing; it is simply mockery, like all the other favours Africa bestows, for there is nothing here to appease your good appet.i.te. I hope you will not expect b.u.t.tered eggs and grilled ham, etc, or you will be terribly disappointed. Reimptje never gives us anything but mealie-meal porridge, and eggs boiled as hard as stones."

"I met those luxuries on the journey up."

"They are all any one ever has for breakfast in Mashonaland."

"In that case I shall go to sleep again for a week," I said, and turned my face to the wall.

"Oh! how unkind of you, Deirdre, when I am longing to hear all the news about everybody."

So we gossiped awhile, and I told her all the home news, and she explained to me how she came to be in Fort George and away from d.i.c.k.

It appeared that a slight epidemic of typhoid fever had broken out in Salisbury, and every one had become very much alarmed, as its origin could not be discovered. The hospital sisters were coping well with cases, but many men had decided to send their wives away for a while until the reason of the outbreak had been discovered. As several other ladies were starting for Fort George d.i.c.k had persuaded Judy that it might be a good thing for her also to get a little change.

"We came down by waggon with an escort of men, and it was awfully jolly and amusing at first," said Judy. "But we are all rather sick of it, and would like to go back. At least I would. I don't think Mrs Valetta cares very much, for she has an awful husband and is delighted to be away from him. Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, though she pretends to adore her wretched little Monty, is not at all in a hurry to go back to _him_. She and Anna Cleeve are living in a tent together and affect to be enormous friends, calling each other by pet names, but they will have a terrible quarrel one of these days. Mrs Valetta lives in the hut next door, but there is an entrance from it into this, and she has her meals with me and is obliged to come in here to dress, as her hut has no looking-gla.s.s. I hope you won't mind her coming. Of course she must see herself."

I did not recognise any such necessity on the part of so wicked-looking a face, but I said nothing, and presently, after Judy had dressed and gone to make some inquiries on the subject of breakfast, Mrs Valetta, swathed in an ashen-blue kimono that matched her eyes, came wearily in and stood before the dressing-table. She began to take hold of some curls that were lying about on her forehead and to fluff them up with a hairpin. In the meantime she looked in the mirror at me, examining me carefully.

"Aren't you going to get up?" she asked. "Your sister-in-law promised to take you round to the tennis-court this afternoon. Every one is very anxious to see you."

"How kind of them," I said, "but I really am too tired, Mrs Valetta.

The thought of tennis in my present state makes my spirit faint."

She considered me thoughtfully, still through the mirror.

"_I_ think you will be foolish not to come. Mrs Skeffington-Smythe will tell all the men that it is because you are so burnt and blistered.

They will get quite a wrong impression of you."

I answered cheerfully: "They can get a fresh one when they see me. But do their impressions matter?"

This, for no earthly reason, annoyed her. She cast me a look of mingled irritation and curiosity which I received calmly. At twenty-one one can bear with a prepared heart the piercing scrutiny of "something over thirty."

"Oh, yes: you will find that they matter. One has rather a bad time in this country if the men don't like one."

I could have told her that men always liked me, but it seemed brutal to inflict unnecessary pain.

"Really?"

"For one thing they have all the horses, and there is very little to do if one doesn't ride. But, of course, that won't affect you."

"Oh, why?" said I, opening my eyes wide. "I've brought a habit with me and I adore riding."

I thought of "Belle's" white feet and my own tingled to be in the stirrups.

"Ah! but your vanity will take you much further than any Mashonaland horse," said she, and loafed wearily from the room.

Really, that was _tres drole_! I couldn't help laughing, first at her cross-patchiness and secondly at the idea of my being vain. For, of course, I am not vain at all, only these antagonistic women aroused my dormant cat, and made me want to say arrogant things. I felt sure that if I did not they would walk all over me, and that is a thing I never allow any one to do. It is bad for them.

The sense of disappointment I had felt the night before returned to me, but it was accompanied by the spirit of fight. If these women wanted battle, well they should have it, and I would fight them with their own weapons. However, it behooved me first to put mine in order. I presently arose and from my dressing-case secured a hand-gla.s.s and a pot of common or garden hazeline, which I had found to prove a more useful friend in time of need than all the Oriental creams that were ever buried with Persian princesses and rooted out again by the owners of beauty-parlours in Bond Street and Fifth Avenue. Having retired to my bed once more I fell to studying my appearance with an earnestness I had never before given the subject.

The old tragic look was peeping out of my gay face as usual. I jibed at it as always: but really I believe that without it I should not have been so charming and original looking.

My mother could never watch me long without tears coming into her eyes.

She would say:

"Oh, Deirdre, what puts that look into the back of your eyes?"

And I would answer:

"Darling, what look? I was just thinking of a book, or a ride, or a new gown--nothing sad at all."

"Well, it must mean something, Deirdre!" she would declare. "I fear for you. I believe you are predestined to some terrible suffering or sorrow, and your soul knows about it and is afraid."

"Nonsense, darling," I always told her. "I'll never let anything make me unhappy. No one shall turn me into a tragedy. I know too much about the joy of living."

"Oh, Deirdre, don't talk like that. It sounds as if you were daring Fate."

So I was. I had always thought of Fate as she had been represented to me in a queer book of fancies and fables by a sardonic old French author.

"Fate is an old hag with a basket full of painted apples. She hands you out one, and you are so foolish as to take it, and when you bite it and find it rotten she smiles grimly and says, 'I told you so' (though she had not). And when you don't like the taste of the paint she says, 'But you must eat it to the core. Perhaps it will taste better there.' (But it does not.)"

A Fate like that _ought_ to be defied, and I felt sure that if every one did so she could never harm them. Tragedy is in us, and not in externals: Emerson says so. I refused to be a tragedy.

I laughed at Fate, and considered my complexion. Like everything about me it was unusual. It had a rich cream tint that blended perfectly with my wallflower eyes and hair. My mother arranged my colouring for me before I was born. She had a pa.s.sion for reds and browns and ambers, and ardently desired to have a daughter with such colouring, so for all the months before I was born she used to have her rooms heaped with marigolds and wallflowers and nasturtiums and sit amongst them. People said she was a crazy American woman, full of eccentric ideas and notions, and perhaps she was; but she got what she wanted. For the velvet reds and browns and ambers of those simple but lovely flowers _did_ reproduce themselves in my eyes and hair--at least every one said so--and the tint was in my skin, too, in an indescribable sort of way, and the effect was not at all unbecoming to my small, narrow, and extremely _retrousse_ face. Did I ever say that every single thing about me turns upwards?--my chin, nose, cheekbones, lips--all have that curly, odd, rather fascinating upward tilt, and every single hair on my head turns up at the ends. Yes, I am very _retrousse_. Of course, I don't say that it is pretty; but it is rather original I think.

After all, the sun had not done my skin so much harm as I thought.

Indeed, I had often been in worse case after a week on the river, or a day's hunting in hard weather, and thought nothing of it. As for my eyes and hair, "Time with her cold wing" might some day wither them, but Africa had certainly done them no harm so far. However, I decided to anoint myself in a royal manner with cold cream, and take a full day's rest. Incidentally, I unpacked my war-paint and plumes, and shook the creases from my coats of mail.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE HEART CALLS.

"All charming people are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction."

On the second day after my arrival I descended upon my enemies in open field, or rather on open court. Judy, having reviewed my toilette before starting, was suddenly smitten with a violent headache, and said that Mrs Valetta would chaperon me to tennis.

In ordinary circ.u.mstances I should have felt distinctly mean about appearing amongst people who had for some time been cut off from shops and civilisation by about eight thousand miles of rolling land and sea, in a pale yellow muslin gown concerning which _Lucile_ considered she had received special inspiration from Heaven, and a black chip Lentheric hat which no woman could look upon unmoved. However, I was not at that time considering the feelings of other women, but the ways of certain members of the family _felis_. It had come to my ears, through the kindly offices of my sister-in-law, that Mrs Skeffington-Smythe had informed the world at large that I was suffering from a _boil_ on my nose and fifty-six mosquito bites variously distributed over the rest of my features. Miss Cleeve had contented herself with saying that she personally did not care for the new shade in hair--it had a pink tone in it that was _bizarre_. What Mrs Valetta said had not yet transpired, but looking at her as she slouched beside me in her tired coat and skirt, I felt sure that it was something equally malicious.

We arrived at the court in an hour of brazen heat. Four men were playing a sett, and several others were cl.u.s.tered round a tea-basket and Mrs Brand, who still wore her habit. On the other side of the court was a little group of women sitting in canvas chairs with white umbrellas over their heads and needlework in their hands. I was informed that these were the Fort George women--"frumps and dowds of the most hopeless order." However, they appeared to be very happy and content in spite of this utter depravity on their part, and they had a number of nice, keen, clean-looking men with them. These did not stay for any time, having apparently business of their own to attend to.

"Husbands!" said Mrs Valetta scornfully, "and mostly shopkeepers and farmers at that."

This naturally lessened my interest in them, for I did not suppose I should meet them if they belonged to the tradespeople cla.s.s, and, in fact, I rather wondered what they were doing there at all. I had not at that time learned that in a new country like Mashonaland men can, and do, turn their hands to any trade or calling that is clean, without in the least prejudicing themselves or their future. Most of those nice, keen-looking men had left good professional livings to come adventuring to a new, sweet land full of radiant possibilities, but until some of the possibilities materialised the main thing was to get a living in the best way that offered. But as I say, I did not at the time realise these things.