The Claw Part 9

"Hope--the heroic form of despair!"

My heart strangely thrilled with the thought that if I had read aright the witch's symbol then I, too, was of the initiated. I was one of them--if only for a time!

While I thought and felt these things, I was vaguely aware that they watched me in a curious, searching way, as if I had for each of them some hidden message I had not yet delivered. Perhaps it was that coming from "home" and being quite new to the country I had a different look to the rest of them, I cannot tell; but there it was--they jested and laughed and gossiped with each other, but always their eyes came back to me with that wistful, searching glance. And my clothes seemed to have an extraordinary charm for them. One would have supposed I had dropped from some wonderful land from which they were life exiles, and that the glamour of that fair, lost country hung about me still. I saw men's eyes examining my shoes and the tucks in my gown; even the one great La France rose in my hat had some magic; and the women looked so wistful that I felt tears rising, and was miserably ashamed of myself for having put on my prettiest gown to annoy them. It seemed to me then that even if they _had_ been cats, I had been the worst cat of all. Lord Gerald Deshon said to me boyishly:

"May I sit next to you, Miss Saurin? you smell so nice." And when the old doctor picked up my glove which had fallen, he gave it a little stroke with his hand before handing it back, as though it were something alive.

The sun sank out of sight at last, disappearing in a billowy sea of wild-rose clouds. Golden day departed, and silver eventide was born.

Gold for silver! I cannot tell why those three little words stole through my mind and settled in my heart, as we walked home under a great canopy of purple haze full of coolness and the scent of evening fires: but it seemed to me suddenly that they were the most beautiful words ever written and the meaning of them more beautiful still.

The entire party conducted Mrs Valetta and me to our doors. The women seemed loth to lose sight of us, and the men talked feverishly of commandeering all the horses in the town for a moonlight picnic.

Unexpectedly to me, somehow, Major Kinsella killed this delightful plan by saying quietly: "No, the horses are not available." The crake in his voice had become suddenly most p.r.o.nounced; perhaps that was why the men, who had been so keen for the picnic, accepted this dictum without a word, but I thought the fact rather curious. Mrs Brand and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe were the only people who did not abandon the idea immediately.

The latter petulantly demanded reasons and told him that he did not own all the horses in the town, any more than he owned all the hearts. Mrs Brand said st.u.r.dily:

"I don't know what you are up to, my dear Kim, but don't you lay your hands on either of _my_ horses."

He smiled but made no promises, and instead of giving reasons to Mrs Skeffington-Smythe began to discuss the possession of hearts with her.

I said good-bye hastily and went indoors.

Judy rid of her headache had cheered up and put on a pretty gown, but her hair was done anyhow and her manner unchangingly languid.

After dinner we spent the evening playing cards at Mrs Brand's. She had a really comfortable two-roomed brick house lent her by the postmaster, on the condition that he could drop in whenever he liked.

However, some gay spirits had rigged up in the hall a toy Maxim belonging to a mining engineer, and this was trained on to the front door and loaded with "mealies" for the benefit of the postmaster, in case he should "drop in" at the wrong time. Really these were the silliest people!

Somehow the evening did not prove so interesting as the afternoon.

Almost all the same people were there but to me there seemed a lack of fire about the proceedings, even when Mrs Brand had a supper of curried eggs sent in from Swears's to rouse us, and a delightful dessert consisting of the contents of grenadillas mixed with port wine, was served in champagne gla.s.ses.

The man called Stair attached himself to me in a quiet, una.s.suming way that I could not object to. He talked little but seemed to be content to sit near me and look at me with his rather romantic dark eyes.

Neither Major Kinsella nor Colonel Blow appeared.

Incidentally, and without asking questions, I learned a great many things about the former. Off and on, he was the main topic of conversation during the evening. His name cropped up faithfully every five minutes. When Lord Gerry said that he had certain information that "Kim" was going to be in command of the Mounted Police that would be formed as soon as the trouble with Lobengula was over, Mrs Skeffington-Smythe said acidly:

"He behaves as if he were in command of the country now."

"It wouldn't be such a dusty thing for the country if he were," a boy c.o.c.kily announced; but this was rank treason to the G.o.ds in charge, and he was hooted down and told to go to bed.

"I wish I had his future," said some one else.

"Even if you had to take his past with it?" a woman asked (Mrs Valetta).

"Certainly: that wouldn't hurt me."

"It might hurt a few women though," sneered Mrs Skeffington-Smythe.

"How unfair women are!" said Lord Gerry. "If a man said a thing like that he would have to back it up or take the consequences."

"Oh! I am quite ready to do both," she answered perkily, and glanced at her great friend Miss Cleeve, who merely stared at her cards.

"You can't blame a man because women are fools," said the Mining Commissioner, a slight man full of heavy philosophy. Judy, with a prim air, abruptly changed the subject, but in five minutes they were back to it again, like cats to cream.

It transpired that "Kim" was short for Kimberley, where he had dealt with diamond mines, and made and lost a fortune.

"But wasn't that a very long time ago?" I was surprised into asking.

For I had pa.s.sed through Kimberley and found that its day of glory had departed.

"Long? why, yes, it certainly wa-s," drawled Mr Hunloke, the lawyer, wagging his head. "But Kim is no newly-hatched birdling."

"Haven't you observed that there's no wool on his head where the wool ought to grow?" said one of the cheeky boys of whom I thought there were far too many about.

"No, I have not," I answered disdainfully.

"Well, it's getting mighty spa.r.s.e," he proclaimed, with increased cheekiness.

"Oh! that's holy living," said the doctor, and leered his goat-like leer.

I thought what horrid people they all were. It appeared that Anthony Kinsella was not an army man as English people understand the term. His rank had been gained in various bodies of African Mounted Police which he had belonged to in the intervals of making and losing money in the gold and diamond capitals. He had a great head for finance they said, but in the midst of successful undertakings and deals he would break away and disappear, and the next heard of him would be that he was living with his boys in a lonely part of the veldt, or had rejoined for a time some old corps of his. He had come adventuring to South Africa when he was quite a boy, knew every inch of the country, and was looked upon as almost a colonial.

"_Almost_, but not quite," said Gerald Deshon, "he is one of us. Also, he is a born leader, and no colonial was ever that, though I daresay some will come along by-and-bye as the years roll on."

"But why does he wear turquoise ear-rings?" I asked involuntarily, thinking no one but Lord Gerry was listening.

I was mistaken.

"Some woman stuck them in his ears, I suppose," said Mrs Valetta fiercely; and she and Miss Cleeve glared at me across their cards. I stared at them in surprise for a moment, then laughed, though I was not greatly amused.

"I never thought of that."

"You would have if you had known Kim long," said Mrs Brand dryly.

"I've heard that there have been more men hurt than you can count on your fingers and toes through a too pressing curiosity about those ear-rings," some one remarked.

"Yes, a fellow on the Rand once nearly died of that complaint," added Tommy Dennison. "It is a subject that Kim will stand no ragging about."

"She must have been a very pretty woman," grinned the doctor.

I suddenly felt very tired and low-spirited and longed to go away from them. I was sick of their wretched card-party. I wondered what all the "frumps and dowds" were doing and their nice business-like men, and was inspired to make a remark.

"Do the Fort George men spend their evenings talking scandal also?"

There was absolute silence and then all the men began to grin.

"You can search _me_!" averred Mr Hunloke, but his partner answered blithely:

"Oh! _they're_ getting ready to tackle Loben."