Wild Honey Part 6

"Come along with me!"

"Come with you? I'll see you up a gum tree first."

"Very well. You can take what's coming to you here instead if you prefer it."

"What do you mean?" Roper's face was belligerent but he began to back.

The other's eyes, suddenly grown very steel-coloured, had taken a kind of measuring glance into them.

"Just this, that you don't surely suppose you're going to be let off for your infernal cheek of the past ten days?--and all the annoyance you have caused this gentleman here?" (He slightly indicated Vivienne.)

"_Gentleman_!" sn.i.g.g.e.red Roper, but got no further, for his mouth was stopped in a very rude and unkind manner. Vivienne's heart gave a leap at the sound of the blow. Never before had she seen a man thrashed, nor any kind of brute violence used by one man to another. A month or two back, the very idea of such a thing would have made her sick, probably have caused her to faint. It is certain that she would, out of very hatred of violence, have sided with the aggressed, whatever his crime, against the aggressor. It showed how Africa had steeled her nerves and readjusted her sense of values that she could sit through the scientific and very thorough punching to which the transport driver was treated, without turning a hair.

Afterwards, Roper's boys, with a jubilation of manner never before observed in them, removed their master to the shade of his waggon and administered whiskey, while the man Kerry went away to wash his hands and make a quick change. The post-cart driver, a swarthy half-Dutch colonial, who talked the most extraordinary language Vivienne had ever heard, beguiled the tedium of waiting with anecdotes of Roper's past.

"_Maar_! it was _lekker_ to see dat _slegte skepsel_ get it good and red! _Ach! sis ja_, he's de worst stinkhond on dis road. I knowed him well _daar bij de Kaap. Ja wat_! he done ten years mealie-meal pap on de Cape Town breakwater already for I.D.B., and another five years in de Bloemfontein _tronk_ for half murdering an _arme kind_ of a Hottentot girl. He hit her on de head with a _klip, wat! Allemagtie! sis_, yes, he's a _vaabond_. I seen him do some dirty jobs between here and Mafeking. _Verneuking_ de Kaffirs and hammering his boys for _niks nie.

Ek seh ver jou_, dere isn't nothing what dat _verdomde bliksem_ wouldn't do!"

Vivienne could well believe it. Such of the narrative as was comprehensible to her made her more deeply realise what her danger had been and how much she owed to the protection of Kerry. Her heart glowed with a warmth and grat.i.tude she had never expected to feel again for anyone as she saw him returning, fresh from his dip and change, nonchalant as ever.

"Oh, how good you've been to me! What should I have done if you had not come!" she cried, and put out her hands to his in a gesture as charming as it was spontaneous.

"That's all right," he said easily. But impa.s.sivity went out of his face and darkness came into his eyes for a moment as he touched her hands. Then they sat side by side behind the driver while the mules spattered onwards through the mud. She recounted to him all she could remember of her adventure from the time she knew herself lost until Roper's appearance roused her from the mental lethargy into which panic and privation had plunged her. But of the ten days' gap in between she could tell him no more than if she had returned from the dead.

"Only it seems like a miracle that you should have come upon the scene just when you did!"

"It was lucky I left the coach at Palapye," he said reflectively. But he did not mention why he had done so. "When I got back some days later, there was no way of proceeding except by taking a horse and a couple of bearers."

"Did you hear then that I was lost?"

"Yes," he said briefly. "The Government had people out searching for you, but you must have travelled at a great rate. I expect you'll want to wire to let people know you are all right as soon as we get near a telegraph office?"

"I suppose so," she said slowly. "Unless it would be possible to just arrive and say nothing as to where I have been, and about that awful time with Roper. I should like that above all." She looked at him appealingly and then at her grimy clothes. "It would be terrible to run the gauntlet like this!"

"We must think up something," he said.

"It is only a matter of clothes to arrive in," she said presently. "I expect I shall find my baggage all safely there."

"Of course. Well, the best plan will be for me to drop you at Fisher's half-way house, a day's drive from Buluwayo. I'll proceed by coach and send you back whatever you need, and some kind of conveyance to come on by. The woman at Fisher's is a quiet, half-dazed Dutch creature who won't talk if she sees you enter a young man and go forth a young woman."

She coloured slightly, conscious suddenly of her grimy knickerbockers and rush hat. Then their eyes met and they both fell into a rush of laughter that broke the last strand of stiffness between them and turned them into girl and boy in a world empty of old griefs and pains and full of sunlight.

They discussed without constraint what she needed in the way of clothes, and how to outwit the curiosity of Rhodesia as to her adventure. She told him about her work, and something of her reason why she could not afford to have the truth known. And if his eyes expressed humorous wonder that she should so much mind what the world thought when she was clear of fault, his enthusiasm in plotting ways and means for keeping her doings dark was no less than her own.

"You must just turn up casually at a hotel one day in your cart, and say you've been all right--that you certainly got lost, but found good friends and have been seeing the country and getting 'copy' ever since.

Chesterfield says: 'Never lie, but don't tell everything.' Let them think what they like. They can't prove anything. Roper knows that if he speaks I'll break him to pieces. As for this driver Koos, I can easily square him. He's an old crony of mine."

The sun pressed down on them hard all day, but there were fresh hills on the horizon, and a gold and emerald scape. The crystal air was vibrant with the odours of rolling leagues of vivid flowers growing close to Earth's hot brown body. Wild bees hovered over the brilliant cactus blooms and strange-coloured brittle cups of the sugar-bush, then rose, honey-laden, and softly _burr-red_ their way home.

At broad noon, they outspanned by a mule stable on the banks of the Lundi, and made a fire for which Vivienne helped collect sticks. Koos filled the kettle at the river, and Kerry went off on the trail of a little bird that was hopping from tree to tree with an insistent note.

It was a honey-bird and its message was clear when Kerry came back carrying two large honey-combs dripping with that golden wine of the veld brewed by the little dark wild bees.

Vivienne thought she had never in her life tasted anything so delicious.

Koos was still at the river. She and Kerry sat on two stones, close to each other, and munched the dripping combs, looking at the great fantastic land about them and sometimes into each other's eyes. She did not know that her youthful beauty had burst through grime and sunburn like a flower from its sheath. He did not know that distance was gone from his eyes again and that they burned dark in his tanned face. But both were aware of the enfolding wings of some great unknown force.

Who drinks Nile water must return to Egypt. Who wears _veld-schoens_ will return to the veld; who tastes of Africa's perfumed honey can never again content him with the honey of pallid Europe. Vivienne could not know that by her act she was being initiated into the fellowship of that great band whose hearts will never more be free from the thrilling exquisite pain of Africa's claw. She only knew that some strange taste of strange life went from the honey into her very being and that she had never lived before as she lived in that moment. Life had been waiting for her behind a veil, and now she drew nearer the veil and from behind it came the perfume of stephanotis and cactus bloom and wild honey, the murmuring of rivers, the music of trees. Africa was wild honey, and wild honey was Africa. It had got into her blood. Gone to her brain.

Oh, the sweetness of it! The flame of skies and flowers! Time and s.p.a.ce here for dreams! Here the rats and mice of life--malice, intrigue, slander, all the gibbering gnawing things that can make life h.e.l.l--were absent. Here one pressed one's lips to life and felt the thrill of the kiss swinging up and down every vein in one's body.

Suddenly she gave a cry. A bee's sting had embedded itself in the sensitive flesh of her lower lip, and an exquisite needle-like pain brought tears to her eyes. He saw at once what had happened and sprang up.

"I'll get it out. Hold still a minute."

Touching her face with strong fingers grown extraordinarily delicate, he pinched the lip until he was able to extract the tiny dark sting. She closed her eyes and a tear slipping down her cheek wetted his fingers.

Then he kissed her with the honey and salt wet on her lips, as one might kiss a little crying child. And almost as simply and naturally she kissed him back. When she realised what she had done, her heart seemed to become hollow in the sunlight for one moment, then full, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with some strange wine. She wanted to be furious with him, but looking at his eyes no words would come to her lips. They stood there staring at each other like people in a dream. The sight of Koos coming back recalled her to herself, the spell under which she had been, broke.

Frigid conventional words came to her lips, of the kind she might have spoken in a London drawing-room.

"You forget yourself! ... How dared you!"

His clear tanned face a.s.sumed a deep flush and he turned away abruptly.

If she expected an apology she was disappointed. No other word was spoken between them, and when they mounted the coach it was by the driver's side he sat, leaving the whole of the back seat to her.

She found in this something to be thankful for, though her soul resented it. Slowly, with the gold of afternoon and red lights of evening, her anger faded away, but the enchantment of Africa faded too, and she felt cold, cold to the bone.

At the next stopping-place, a young Dutchman was waiting for the coach, and went on with them the following morning. He turned out to be a sprightly fellow from the Eastern Province, anxious to air his views on the subject of Cape politics and ostrich farming. Vivienne earned a reputation for unsociability by retiring under the shadow of a large felt hat she had obtained at the hotel store. But Kerry, who to make way for the stranger had been obliged to return to the back seat, covered her strange manner and appearance by sitting forward and entering into long arguments. Sometimes both men would lapse into the Boer _taal_, and for frequent spells not a word they said was intelligible to the girl. At such times, Kerry seemed more than a stranger to her. She burned to remember what had pa.s.sed between them, and shrank away as far as possible into her corner. He appeared to notice nothing. His own manner became curiously heavy, dull as the day went on; a day of torrid heat, air full of thunder and thick with dust.

Everyone fell into silence at last, and no sound but the driver's bitter curses and the flack of his whip broke the brooding weariness.

In the late afternoon, a mule fell dead-lame, delaying arrival at Fisher's until past midnight. As she limped from the coach sick with fatigue, Vivienne caught a glimpse by lantern-light of Kerry's face. It was strangely distorted, with eyes bright and bloodshot. The sight of it revolted her, even as his voice speaking the coa.r.s.e gutteral _taal_ had done. But she was too tired to care about anything. Her whole mind had concentrated itself on the thought of bed, and a longing to extend her weary bones in sleep. So that when on the _stoep_, as they waited to be led to their huts, Kerry came near her muttering something indistinguishable, she turned away from him dully, with eyes and ears only for the woman who was to show the way.

It was not until late the next morning that her mind cleared enough to think. Then her first wonder was why she had not been called to rejoin the coach. After lying still a long time, she remembered the plan that she was to be left at this place, and made haste to dress to find out whether the coach had gone without her. Before her clothes were on, a knock came at the door, and she opened it a crack to the stupid, sad-looking woman of the night before. The following dialogue ensued:

"If you want korfie and grub I'll bring it to you. The big _baas_ said you was to have what you wanted."

"Have they gone?"

"Ya. The coach went at six. The big _baas_ said you was too sick to go and must rest in bed till he sends for you."

"Very well; bring me something to eat, please." She got back into bed, and little of her face was showing when the woman returned with food, set it down dully, and departed.

Time and s.p.a.ce in which to think, lying there behind the bolted door, battered mud walls about her, bulging thatch overhead full of fat black spiders that sat immovable as Fate in their lairs. And her thoughts were of the long, long kind, though there was little of youth in them.

She was so silent that the flies pretended to believe her dead and descended upon her in black battalions. The struggle to keep them off made the whole business just a little more sordid, and roused in her a kind of sullen fury against Africa and all that in it was.

"I must get out of it," she muttered to herself. "It is driving me mad.

I must have been mad to let that man kiss me--a common oaf who talks Dutch in that horrible throaty way--a sort of Boer--how dared he!"

She tried to remember his face as it had revolted her the night before, suffused with blood and swollen, but she could only remember the keen, quiet eyes full of light and distance, and how they had darkened when he looked at her, and how they had measured up Roper, and how her heart had leaped in her breast at the sound of the first blow.

"I am mad," she reiterated wearily, and covered her eyes. "This miserable country has driven me mad!"

At sundown the next day, the woman brought a parcel and the news that a cart had come and would be ready to start again at dawn. The parcel contained a man's mackintosh, a dark blue coat and skirt of simple not to say skimpy design, a white blouse, and sailor hat. She shook out the Philistine garments carefully as if she thought a scorpion--or a note-- might be hidden among them. But no sign of either.