The Top of the World Part 44

One day, returning from a ride to find Fair Rosamond swabbing the floor of the _stoep_ with her bath-sponge, she lost her temper completely and wholly unexpectedly, and cut the girl across her naked shoulders with her riding-switch. It was done in a moment--a single, desperate moment of unbearable exasperation. Rosamond screamed and fled, upsetting her pail inadvertently over her mistress's feet as she went. And Sylvia, with a burning sense of shame for her violence, retreated as precipitately to her own room.

She entered by the window, and, not even noticing that the door into the sitting-room stood ajar, flung herself down by the table in a convulsion of tears. She hated herself for her action, she hated Rosamond for having been the cause of it. She hated the blazing sky and the parched earth, the barren _veldt_, the imprisoning _kopjes_, the hopeless sense of oppression, of being always somehow in the wrong. A wild longing to escape was upon her, to go anywhere--anywhere, so long as she could get right away from that intolerable weight of misgiving, doubt, dissatisfaction, foreboding, that hung like a galling chain upon her.

She was getting like Mrs. Merston, she told herself pa.s.sionately.

Already her youth had gone, and all that made life worth living was going with it. She had made her desperate bid for happiness, and she had lost. And Burke--Burke was only watching for her hour of weakness to make himself even more completely her master than he was already. Had he not only that morning--only that morning--gruffly ordered her back from a distant cattle-run that she had desired to inspect? Was he not always a.s.serting his authority in some fashion over her, crumbling away her resistance piece by piece till at last he could stride in all-conquering and take possession? He was always so strong, so horribly strong, so sure of himself. And though it had pleased him to be generous in his dealings with her, she had seen far less of that generosity since Guy's recovery. They were partners no longer, she told herself bitterly. That farce was ended. Perhaps it was her own fault. Everything seemed to be her fault nowadays. She had not played her cards well during Guy's illness. Somehow she had not felt a free agent. It was Kieff who had played the cards, had involved her in such difficulties as she had never before encountered, and then had left her perforce to extricate herself alone; to extricate herself--or to pay the price. She seemed to have been struggling against overwhelming odds ever since. She had fought with all her strength to win back to the old freedom, but she had failed. And in that dark hour she told herself that freedom was not for her. She was destined to be a slave for the rest of her life.

The wild paroxysm of crying could not last. Already she was beginning to be ashamed of her weakness. And ere long she would have to face Burke. The thought of that steady, probing look made her shrink in every fibre. Was there anything that those shrewd eyes did not see?

What was that? She started at a sound. Surely he had not returned so soon!

For a second there was something very like panic at her heart.

Then, bracing herself, she lifted her head, and saw Guy.

He had entered by the sitting-room door and in his slippers she had not heard him till he was close to her. He was already bending over her when she realized his presence.

She put up a quick hand. "Oh, Guy!" she said with a gasp.

He caught and held it in swift response. "My own girl!" he said.

"I heard you crying. I was in my room dressing. What's it all about?"

She could not tell him, the anguish was still too near. She bowed her head and sat in throbbing silence.

"Look here!" said Guy. "Don't!" He stooped lower over her, his dark face twitching. "Don't!" he said again. "Life isn't worth it. Life's too short. Be happy, dear! Be happy!"

He spoke a few words softly against her hair. There was entreaty in their utterance. It was as if he pleaded for his own self.

She made a little movement as if something had pierced her, and in a moment she found her voice.

"Life is so--difficult," she said, with a sob.

"You take it too hard," he answered rapidly. "You think too much of--little things. It isn't the way to be happy. What you ought to do is to grab the big things while you can, and chuck the little ones into the gutter. Life's nothing but a farce. It isn't meant to be taken--really seriously. It isn't long enough for sacrifice.

I tell you, it isn't long enough!"

There was something pa.s.sionate in the reiterated declaration. The clasp of his hand was feverish. That strange vitality of his that had made him defy the death he had courted seemed to vibrate within him like a stretched wire. His att.i.tude was tense with it. And a curious thrill went through her, as though there were electricity in his touch.

She could not argue the matter with him though every instinct told her he was wrong. She was too overwrought to see things with an impartial eye. She felt too tired greatly to care.

"I feel," she told him drearily, "as if I want to get away from everything and everybody."

"Oh no, you don't!" he said. "All you want is to get away from Burke. That's your trouble--and always will be under present conditions. Do you think I haven't looked on long enough? Why don't you go away?"

"Go away!" She looked up at him again, startled.

Guy's sunken eyes were shining with a fierce intensity. They urged her more poignantly than words. "Don't you see what's going to happen--if you don't?" he said.

That moved her. She sprang up with a sound that was almost a cry, and stood facing him, her hand hard pressed against her heart.

"Of course I know he's a wonderful chap and all that," Guy went on.

"But you haven't cheated yourself yet into believing that you care for him, have you? He isn't the sort to attract any woman at first sight, and I'll wager he has never made love to you. He's far too busy with his cattle and his crops. What on earth did you marry him for? Can't you see that he makes a slave of everyone who comes near him?"

But she lifted her head proudly at that. "He has never made a slave of me," she said.

"He will," Guy rejoined relentlessly. "He'll have you under his heel before many weeks. You know it in your heart. Why did you marry him, Sylvia? Tell me why you married him!"

The insistence of the question compelled an answer. Yet she paused, for it was a question she had never asked herself. Why had she married Burke indeed? Had it been out of sheer expediency? Or had there been some deeper and more subtle reason? She knew full well that there was probably not another man in Africa to whom she would have thus entrusted herself, however urgent the circ.u.mstances. How was it then that she had accepted Burke?

And then, looking into Guy's tense face, the answer came to her, and she had uttered it almost before she knew. "I married him because he was so like you."

The moment she had uttered the words she would have recalled them, for Guy made an abrupt movement and turned so white that she thought he would faint. His eyes went beyond her with a strained, gla.s.sy look, and for seconds he stood so, as one gone suddenly blind.

Then with a jerk he pulled himself together, and gave her an odd smile that somehow cut her to the heart.

"That was a straight hit anyway," he said. "And are you going to stick to him for the same reason?"

She turned her face away with the feeling of one who dreads to look upon some grievous hurt. "No," she said, in a low voice. "Only because--I am his wife."

Guy made a short, contemptuous sound. "And for that you're going to let him ride rough-shod over you--give him the right to control your every movement? Oh, forgive me, but you good people hold such ghastly ideas of right and wrong. And what on earth do you gain by it all? You sacrifice everything to the future, and the future is all mirage--all mirage. You'll never get there, never as long as you live."

Again that quick note of pa.s.sion was in his voice, and she tingled at the sound, for though she knew so well that he was wrong something that was quick and pa.s.sionate within her made instinctive response. She understood him. Had she not always understood him?

She did not answer him. She had given him her answer. And he, realizing this turned aside to open the window. Yet, for a moment he stood looking back at her, and all her life she was to remember the love and the longing of his eyes. It was as if for that second a veil had been rent aside, and he had shown her his naked soul.

She wondered afterwards if he had really meant her to see. For immediately, as he went out, he broke into a careless whistle, and then, an instant later, she heard him fling a greeting to someone out in the blinding sunshine.

An answer came back from much nearer than she had antic.i.p.ated. It was in the guttural tones of Hans Schafen the overseer, and with a jerk she remembered that the man always sat on the corner of the _stoep_ to await Burke if he arrived before their return from the lands. It was his custom to wear rubber soles to his boots, and no one ever heard him come or go. For some reason this fact had always prejudiced her against Hans Schafen.

CHAPTER V

EVERYBODY'S FRIEND

When Burke came in to lunch half an hour later, he found Sylvia alone in the sitting-room, laying the cloth.

She glanced up somewhat nervously at his entrance. "I've frightened Rosamond away," she said.

"Little cuss! Good thing too!" he said. She proceeded rapidly with her occupation.

"I believe there's a sand-storm coming," she said, after a moment.

"Yes, confound it!"' said Burke.

He went to the window and stood gazing out with drawn brows.

With an effort she broke the silence. "What has Schafen to report?

Is all well?"

He wheeled round abruptly and stood looking at her. For a few seconds he said nothing whatever, then as with a startled sense of uncertainty she turned towards him he spoke. "Schafen? Yes, he reported--several things. The dam over by Ritter Spruit is dried up for one thing. The animals will all have to driven down here.