Chapter XVII
Richard Selbourne stood in front of his South African home, blankly surveying the cloudless heaven.
Over the white farm-buildings and tin-roofed kaffir huts a slumbrous peace was reigning, for it was the hour of noonday rest, and men and beasts alike lay placidly sleeping.
Clothing the shores of the great dam hard by—now shrunk to half its usual proportions—the feathery willows drooped motionless, as though in silent lamentation of its fallen estate; even the restless windmill had ceased from toiling, and save for an occasional dismal clonk, uttered seemingly in its dreams, slumbered with the rest.
Stretching away on all sides from the small oasis of trees, lucerne patches, and dam, forming Rosebank Farm, rolled a sea of yellow grass, from which stuck up, like islands, saw-like ridge and conical kopje, and beyond them could be seen a giant ring of brown, paper-like hills, their outline sharp-cut and rigid against a sky of hard vivid blue.
As he looked at the scene, a frown gathered on Richard’s handsome face, and in impotent anger he shook his fist at the blandly-smiling heavens.
“Confound you!” he muttered, “why can’t you hide your face and rain for once in a while? My lucerne’s withering, the dam will give out in a fortnight, the beasts are dying in the fields. Gad, I came out here to get away from English mists and fogs, but I’d give something now to feel one of those same old yellow fogs in my throat again. England, London, shops, Club, Savoy—oh damn! I’ll go in and sleep.” Richard shook his smart person—for clad though he was in weatherbeaten garments, patched and stained, Selbourne possessed that indefinable air of “class,” which ancient clothes but serve to emphasise—and walked slowly back to the house.
On the stoep the figure of a girl was standing, clad in a black-and-white homespun riding-skirt, a white drill jacket, and a large grey Terai hat. “Hullo, Stara,” said Richard, seeing her; “now, what the blazes are you up to, not going out riding in this heat, surely? You’ll get sunstroke to a moral, if you do. Hullo!” suddenly aware of something unusual in her appearance, “what have you done to yourself? Lord, you’ve got on a habit, what’s up? Oh!” and Richard’s mouth expanded into a grin; and he winked at his sister, whose face straightway became bright red.
“And why shouldn’t I put on a skirt?” she answered with dignity. “I know I usually do not, but——.”
“But now he’s coming you do.”
“Nothing of the sort, I put it on because it’s cooler. Don’t keep me, please. I’m going to meet the Cape cart, as you’re too lazy. Where’s Polly?”
“In bed and asleep, but I shouldn’t worry if I were you. The boy ought to know his way by now. I’m afraid though, old girl, this pal of yours will have rather a dull time, nothing on earth to do but look at the sunset, and you, I suppose. What’s the game, Stara, are you going to make a job of it at last? Tell your brother, my child.”
Again the vivid blush, but with it now a sharp stab of pain. Make a job of it, yes. Tell her brother, not for a thousand worlds, though ten times a thousand would Stara have given to be able to say, “I’m going to marry him,” instead of telling a lie—the first of many.
“There’s nothing to tell you, Dick,” she answered, looking away; “he’s a friend, that’s all. You know I have men friends without any thought of other things.”
“I’m aware you have, though the poor devils themselves think differently, I should say. Never mind, old lady, you carry on and do what you like; it’s no business of mine; and it’s dull enough for you here, God knows, with only Polly and me.”
“It is not, Dick, it is not, you must never think that, I love being here, and I—I hope you will like Colonel Graeme, though I’m afraid somehow he’s not quite the sort of man you would.”
“Oh, I’ll like him all right, Stara, don’t you bother. I do most fellows, unless they’re wrong ’uns, and I know you wouldn’t fancy one of that sort. Funny I never saw the chap when the ‘1st’ came through here last year. I dined with them, you know, and can remember most. There was a fellow called Porky, who never stopped talking till he got blind, and Graves, and Carson—good fellow, Carson—and old Royle, and yes, there was another chap none of them seemed to fancy. I didn’t cotton to him myself, either, though I don’t know why. He set my teeth on edge, for some reason.”
“What was he like, Dick?”
“Rum-looking fellow, long nose, pale face, black eyes, not a bit like a soldier. Wore a purple silk cap at dinner, I remember, with gold bugs on it. Never saw such a thing in my life.”
“Dick, it’s he; but his eyes are not black, they’re blue.”
“Lord, you don’t mean it, Stara? Damn, but I’m sorry, somehow. I wish it had been Carson—never mind, though. I dare say I was wrong, I usually am, and, anyway, your bringing him here is good enough for me. I’m going in to sleep now. Bye-bye, old girl; don’t overtire yourself; you look a bit white. Polly and I will be looking out for you when you get back.”
“Dick, if—you’d rather not have him here, I’ll arrange it. I’ll tell him you’ve sickness in the house, and that he must put up at the hotel. I could ride with him every day just the same.”
“Hotel be blowed, Stara, what, a guest of mine put up at that Duikerpoort drinking shanty. Thank’ye no, I don’t do that sort of thing. Now be off. Here’s your pony, and tell Graeme from me he’s very welcome; don’t forget,” and Richard rather huffily pushed aside the cane blinds and disappeared into the house.
Stara mounted and rode slowly away, the old antagonists watching each other once more across the battlefield of her mind—loyalty and straight-dealing on the one side, and love on the other. Of struggle between them, however, there was now none, for the question had been fought out three weeks before, on that day when the single word “Coming” had been flashed to her across six thousand miles of sea. Then indeed the battle had been fierce but final, for Stara, unlike most women, did not, her antagonist once down, lift him up again for the pleasure of renewing the combat with the consequent certainty of ultimate defeat.
Slower than Hector in decision, for to her the throwing overboard of honour and loyalty was a heart-wrenching pang, she nevertheless, in this instance, showed herself stronger than he, and the giving up of all once determined on, the sacrifice would be made freely and unreservedly. And so honour and loyalty were crushed down, and love remained alone on the field. Her mouth hardened, she thrust aside the thought of what lay behind, and, striking her pony with her spurred heel, hurried on to the destiny rushing to meet her.
For miles she rode without drawing rein, her mount lolloping easily on, as if impervious to heat or fatigue, till at length, some eight miles having been covered, she pulled up, and, dismounting, loosened the girths and led the pony away from the track to a small rise a few hundred yards away. Here she left him, the reins trailing loosely on the ground—Basuto-bred, he would stay there, she knew, for hours—and, throwing herself down on the grass, lay there, with her eyes fixed on the road ahead, a white thread seaming the yellow plain, till, topping a distant rise, it became lost to view.
Far below her, stretching across the track, a great herd of blesbok were moving restlessly, their forms looking vague and unreal through the gauzy veil of heat. Save for them and a wide-winged lammergeier hanging motionless in the blue vault above, sign of life there was none—veldt, kopje, and mountain slumbered undisturbed.
Suddenly Stara’s body stiffened, her half-closed eyes opened wide, and a look almost of terror came into them, for the peace was broken at last, and the blesbok below, like her, were startled. Their aimless wanderings ceased, the outlying groups drew in, till the herd became one solid mass, and their heads were turned away from her towards the rise, beyond which the road dipped and was lost to sight.
Something had frightened them, but what? Then Stara’s eyes grew wild as she, too, saw what that something was—a small cloud of dust topping the hill, and then rapidly descending into the plain below her. For a while the herd stood staring, and then began to move away, at a walk first, then at a trot, and finally in a headlong gallop, bounding over the grass for some miles, when they stopped, wheeled sharply about and again stood staring.
The cloud of dust drew nearer, taking shape as it came, till a Cape cart drawn by mules could be plainly seen. In the cart there were two figures—one in black, with a conical hat, sitting bolt upright and brandishing a whip; the other seemed strangely misty and indistinct to Stara.
She rose, turned her eyes towards the browsing pony, and moved away; then stopped, with her mouth firm-set, and sat down once more.
“What a woman I am, after all,” she muttered, “flight, hide for him to pursue and find; we’re all the same, pretend as we like. Heavens, how fast that cart’s coming, what does Jacob mean by driving the mules like that? Ah! they’ve seen me; there’s the boy pointing with his whip, they’re stopping, and it’s come at last. Oh, I daren’t look at him, I know he’ll show elation, and I shall hate him.”
“How do you do, Colonel Graeme?”
“Quite well, thank you, Miss Selbourne; that’s the right answer, isn’t it? Damned fit I am, look at me and see.”
Startled, Stara looked up, and fear vanished in amazement, for here was no triumphant conqueror, but a stricken, haggard-eyed man. “He has done it and regrets,” she thought, and instantly was in revolt.
“It’s so very good of you to come, Colonel Graeme, such a long journey in the heat. Did you have a good passage? My brother is so looking forward to seeing you, shall we get on? My pony’s here, and——”
“Don’t be a fool, I’ve not come eight thousand miles to see your brother, sit down.”
“I think perhaps, as it’s getting late——”
“Do you want to hear, or don’t you? If not, I go back now.”
“That—that depends. If... you regret... I don’t.”
“Bah!”
“Tell me.”
“Kiss me first, not like that—properly.” He caught Stara to him, and kissed her in a way that made her cheeks flame. She shrank back frightened and ashamed.
“Does that look as though I regretted? Listen. I’ve broken with her, as I said I would. Please God, I’ll never see her again, blast her!”
“Oh, Hector, hush! Why?”
“Because she failed to... No, that’s not the reason, because she won’t divorce me. That settles us, you see, no marriage for you and me.”
“I never expected it, Hector. I was ready for it. But... there’s something more. What is it?”
“More, what more do you want, isn’t that enough?”
“Hector, there is; there’s something which has... hurt you. It’s not the parting from her. I can see that. Dearest, I must—I will know.”
“There’s nothing, I tell you, me hurt, by the death of a blind brat? Oh, God, curse me for a babbling fool!”
“Good—good God!”
Hector turned savagely on her. “Why do you say that? What right have you to assume... Take your arms away from me. Oh, you must hear, must you, satisfy your damned curiosity, I suppose? All right, you shall. I told you on the ship I had no children. I lied; there was one, I’d never seen her when I spoke. She was blind and sickly, but—God knows why—she... liked me, used to crawl over me, and call me ‘daddy,’ me, Stara, ‘daddy.’ Laugh, curse you, laugh, you won’t? Look here, then,” he dragged from his pocket the battered figure of James, and held it from him, wildly laughing, “here’s what I play with at nights alone, croon and chuckle over it like the madman I am. Damn you, give it back—give it back, I say,” for Stara had snatched James from his hand and was holding him against her breast, her tears raining on the plush. Hector’s hand fell to his side and he turned sharply away, then once more went on:
“And when I left—I did suddenly, one morning—she came out to find me in the garden. There was an east wind blowing, and she... caught cold, I suppose, and she,” the expression of his voice made Stara shrink back—“the nurse wrote to me, let her die without me; she asked for me, but she wouldn’t send till it was too late. Oh, don’t be a fool and snivel like that, who cares? I don’t. She wouldn’t have lived, in any case. Oh, it didn’t take much to kill my child, Stara, she paid in her body for the rottenness of her father’s soul. For I am rotten—rotten to the core.”
“You’re not, you’re not, no man can be who can love a child like that. Dearest, I won’t have you say it, for you’re mine, Hector, mine. My love is all yours now, and so am—I.”
“Yes, with reservations. Oh, I know the sort of love—pure, no vile, earthly thoughts—thus far and no farther.”
“No. I am not like that. I make no reservations. I give you all.”
Hector stared, and, passion once more reawakening, he caught her by the shoulders; but Stara held him off, her grey eyes looking up into his.
“Wait, there is something you must promise me first. It—it may be, Hector, that in time there might come—another—oh, don’t shrink away from me, it hurts so much—and you’d love my—our child, wouldn’t you, Hector? But if... that should happen, you must take me away... leave the army, forsake ambition for—for love. Could you do that? Think well before you answer, for it’s a big thing, Hector.”
Hector, however, was now in passion’s grip, and reflection had become impossible. Had Stara at that moment asked for the Southern Cross to wear in her hair, he would have promised her that, or anything else; and without a second’s hesitation, he swore, if called upon, to do her bidding.