The Petticoat Commando Part 57

Functions were arranged for her, receptions held, to which white-haired women and stately venerable men came from far to shake her hand, because she was a daughter of the Transvaal, nothing more--not because of what she had done and endured, for this was known to only one or two.

Old friends from South Africa there were in scores, and for the time the State of Holland was transformed into a colony of Boers, which seemed complete when the Boer leaders, Botha, de Wet, and de la Rey, arrived with their staffs. Then it seemed as if the people of Holland lost their heads entirely, and scenes such as those which took place daily in the streets are never to be forgotten by those who witnessed them.

All this, though wonderful, was not the best thing for our heroine, who was "living on her nerves," though in a different way, as surely as she did during those cruel years of war.

Added to this she was frequently tried beyond endurance by the questions:

"Why did the Boers give in? How _could_ the Boers give in and lose their independence?"

One conversation in particular was burnt into her brain.

"Was it the Concentration Camps?"

"No," the answer came slowly, "no, it was not the Concentration Camps.

The high mortality was past, the weakest had been taken, and there was no cause for anxiety for those remaining in the Camps. Their rations had been increased and improved--there was no more of that first awful suffering."

"What was it, then? The arming of the natives?"

The answer came more slowly:

"No, it was not the arming of the natives. Their forces were more scattered, for they were chiefly employed in guarding the railway lines, in protecting stock and guarding block-houses. Though their addition to the British ranks undoubtedly weakened our strength to some extent, their inborn respect for the Boer would have prevented them from ever rendering valuable services to the English. How we laughed, my sister and I, when, on the railway journey from Pretoria to Cape Town, we saw the line patrolled by hundreds of these natives, with gun in hand, stark naked except for a loin-cloth and a bandolier!

So much waste of ammunition! No, the arming of the natives would have been the last thing to induce the Boers to surrender."

"Then it seems to me incomprehensible! surely death were preferable to defeat!"

"Yes, a thousand times; but you forget the National Scouts--the Judas-Boers. _They_ broke our strength. Not by their skill in the use of arms, not by their knowledge of our country and our methods--no!"

"They broke our strength by breaking our ideals, by crushing our enthusiasm, by robbing us of our inspiration, our faith, our hope----"

With averted eyes, and seemingly groping for one last ray of light, the man continued:

"But where were your heroes--your heroes of Magersfontein, Spion Kop, and Colenso?"

"Where were our heroes?" the girl echoed bitterly. "In their graves--in our hospitals--in captivity! Ever foremost in the field--one--by one--they fell---- 'But the remnant that is escaped of the house of Israel shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.'

"Although, under the shadow of this great national calamity, we cannot see it now, there is hope for our sad South Africa. It is too soon to speak of a united race, but the time will surely come when, in the inter-marriage of our children and our children's children, will be formed a nation great and strong and purified."

Through all those weeks our heroine never slept. It seems incredible that the frail form of a girl should be endowed with so great a power of endurance, and that the human mind can stand the strain of smiling self-control by day, abandonment of grief by night.

Those nearest to her, divining something of what she was pa.s.sing through, lavished countless proofs of tender sympathy on her, innumerable acts of loving care for her personal comfort, and well-thought-out plans for drawing her away from herself into the charmed circle of the B---- Labouchere house.

And when her marriage-day drew near she turned away with a superficial glance at the array of costly presents, to devour once again the cables from South Africa, the telegrams from her Generals, the letter and the photograph of her beloved President, inscribed in his illegible hand, "For services rendered during the late war."

Last, but not least, there came to her official-looking doc.u.ments from Het Loo, the personal congratulations of the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Queen-mother--and the ancient blood of Holland coursed more swiftly through her veins as she thought of Wilhelmina, the dauntless young Queen of the Netherlands, now _her_ Queen.

In all the ranks of the "Petticoat Commando" there was not one woman who had dared more, risked more, than the brave Queen of Holland when she dispatched her good man-of-war to bear away from the sh.o.r.es of Africa the hunted President of the South African Republic, to the refuge of her hospitable land.

Flowers, flowers everywhere, first in baskets, then in cartloads, then in waggon-loads, they were deposited at the doors until they overflowed from the reception-rooms into the halls and staircases, and even the verandahs--chrysanthemums and roses in riotous profusion, nestling violets, rarest orchids, bright carnations, heavy with the richest perfume.

Each flower had a separate message for the bride. They understood, and they enveloped her with their unspoken sympathy.

Some there were adorned with her beloved, her most tragic "Vierkleur,"

and over them she lingered long, breathing a prayer to merciful Heaven to still her beating heart for ever.

Not in the wild beauty of the Swiss scenery did she find rest, not by the calm lakes of sapphire blue in which she saw reflected the rugged mountains, soul-satisfying in their majestic grandeur, not in the soundless, the mysterious regions of the eternal snows--but in the north of Holland, where she found herself when autumn fell, Hansie slept.

Languid and more languid she became; drooping visibly, she sank into oblivion in that northern village home, conscious only in her waking hours of the cold, the driving sleet, the howling wind, the ceaseless drip, drip of the swaying trees.

As the long winter months crept by, her sleep became more and more profound, less haunted by the hideous nightmares of the past, and though she at first rebelled, ashamed of her growing weakness, she was soon forced to yield to the resistless demands of outraged nature.

In this she was supported by her husband, who, unknown to her, was acting on the advice of the famous nerve-specialist who had watched her un.o.bserved.

"Let her sleep, if need be for a year, and in the end you will find her normal and restored, of that I am convinced," he had said; and in these words her husband found his greatest comfort, as he tucked his little dormouse in and tip-toed from the darkened room.

Hansie lost count of time, but there were two days in the week of which she was quite sure--the day on which the South African mail reached her and the day on which it was dispatched. In between she slept, as we have seen, but when she woke she always knew that her enfranchised spirit had been to her native land.

A full year had gone by, fifteen months, and when the first breath of winter once more touched the land she gradually became aware of voices calling to her, insistent, imperative voices from across the seas.

"I must go," she said. "What am I doing here? South Africa is calling.

My people want me there. You and I must go. There is a great work for us both." And he, no less ardent and enthusiastic, yielded to her prayers, bade farewell to home and fatherland, sailed away with her to the unknown.

"In all the world," she said, "there is no pain to be compared with the pain of being born a patriot; but a patriot in _exile_--may Heaven protect me from the tragedy of such a fate!"

CONCLUSION

The veil is lifted for one last brief glimpse.

Ten years have gone by since the declaration of peace, ten years each more wonderful than the last, full to overflowing of life's rich experience of joy and grief.

By some strange turn in the hand of Destiny, our heroine finds herself, after many vicissitudes, an inhabitant of the Golden City--that Golden City which had wrecked her youth and very nearly wrecked her life.

For years it has seemed incredible to her that she should have been destined for the position she now holds, a position of so much trust, so difficult, so critical.

A plaything in the hand of Fate, she thought at first, when looking from her balcony she saw the Golden City, with its extensive suburbs stretched out at her feet, and heard the distant, never-ceasing roar of the innumerable mine-batteries of the Rand. But the resistless hand of Fate was drawing her into the sphere of work for which she longed most ardently--woman's work, at home, abroad--and the glamour of Johannesburg stole over her in time.

The terms of peace have been fulfilled, responsible government for the Transvaal and Free State, and Hansie thinks with an intolerable pain of that day at Teneriffe. Had she but known--had she but known--but the cables (she had called them "lying cables" then, and she was not far wrong) had spoken only of a glorious victory for the English and unconditional surrender on the part of the Boers. No word about the terms, the _only_ terms on which the Boers would ever have yielded their independence.

Responsible government has been followed by the Union of the South African provinces.