Читать книгу Seibert of the Island - Gordon Young - Страница 22

Nada had discarded the finery of her homecoming; and, having ransacked the moth-proof boxes stored with clothing, her own and Oreena's, and choosing a dark divided skirt with a brilliant sash-belt (Oreena always used a side-saddle, and would never touch a divided skirt), Nada immediately after lunch mounted a horse Mr. Grinnell chose for her and went galloping over the road that led northward.

She would have known, without remembering landmarks, when she passed from her father's ground to Seibert's, that rose and fell up hill-slope and valley, with ordered fields and groves rigidly spaced, like great bodies of soldiery, stationed at strategic places, menacing the jungle.

As she clattered over the corduroy bridge across the ravine that divided the plantations the horse shied, and with a sidling jump and snort came to a stiff-legged stop. A dozen black, half-naked shapes with cannibal faces looked up from the roadside. They were clearing weeds. A man in a dirty white suit, with a blue handkerchief fluttering at his neck, stared at her from under a pith helmet—a man from somewhere near the far Baltic, blonde-bearded, blackened by the tropic sun—one of Seibert's overseers. He was on foot, with the reins of his horse carelessly across his arm. An open holster sagged on his hip. Two heavily-jawed dogs lay resting in the shade. It was the man that growled, and the blacks with sullen slowness stirred their long hoes.

Nada clucked coaxingly, with a gentle handstroke to the horse's neck, and the horse with wary step edged past the suit of dirty white and fluttering handkerchief, then bolted.

She rode on. Everywhere men were at work, or had left the signs of where they had been at work. Even the untamable spots of jungle had the appearance of having been crowded down cliff-sides or to sharp hilltops, like the last refuge of something vanquished. On her father's side the jungle was creeping back in through much of the land from which Waller, gaunt and powerful, had driven it; but he had never cleaned with the relentless hewing and grubbing and burning and ploughing and hoeing of Seibert, who used all the blacks that he could get. A recruiter could sell him a cargo that he wouldn't have dared to take even into Peru; and some of the incorrigible natives from other plantations on other islands were brought to Seibert.

As Nada entered the grounds about Seibert's house she pulled down her horse on the white coral-built roadway, caught her breath, and cried, "Oh-o!" She rode along slowly, looking from side to side, and was enchanted by the terraces, the paths and winding drives, the rows and masses of flowering shrubs, the beds of flowers, and she faintly heard the sleepy murmur of running water, and passed along a small stream that was fed from hillside springs.

"Oh-o! I don't blame her!"

Every step of the way seemed to add explanation of the puzzling wonder that she had felt ever since learning of Oreena's marriage to Seibert, whom Nada remembered as a huge, ugly man. She had seen him only a few times, then at a distance; that is, since she was more than a child.

The driveway came out before a broad, low, white house, vividly white, with blue trim; the house was almost covered with clustering, cool vines, and sat before an open space of neatly scythed lawn.

No one was in sight. She felt a slight tremor of loneliness, and wondered if she should have come without having sent word.

As she approached the house a bareheaded man raised himself into view. Without coming from anywhere, he simply appeared behind the balled bay in a large urn on the veranda. He was a huge man, with no hair near his forehead, and a round, fleshy, reddishly black face. His coat was off. The open collar showed a thick, strong neck with folds of flesh. He was in stockinged feet, and the spurred boots lay on the floor by the jack. The man's body was big, with the muscular curves that bulls have. He held spectacles in one hand and a paper in the other, and remained motionless while she rode up. Two or three dogs came out of the shadows and peered at her, then lazily disappeared. They were trained to bark at blacks and blacks only.

Seibert stared at her blankly; then, partly by her resemblance to her sister and partly by recognising where the horse she rode belonged, he knew who she was. His lips came back over the big, strong, white teeth, and for a moment his mouth was opened, as if he had forgotten how to speak; the corners of the blue eyes wrinkled, and a big, half-bare arm, went into the air with an open-handed, welcoming gesture. The arm waved about vaguely, even after he had shouted: "Thunder of heaven, Miss Combe. My sister—ah!"

Then he called loudly, with hearty mastery, summoning servants: "Ho, Lalua—Lalua! Your mistress, tell your mistress her sister has come—her sister!" Cupping his hands, the big voice boomed across the grounds: "Tono! Tono! Tono!" From far off a faint answer came. "Here, take this horse. Come! Fast, you lazy loafer!"

His voice was loud with good nature, yet one knew by the thin, quick answers that he got, and by the running gait of the little black man who had a bandage on his face and came for Nada's horse, that something more than good nature ruled here.

He showed a hearty pride, a flourish of pride, in calling up servants and booming through the silent grounds. There was no pretence at not being proud. At once he was demanding what she thought of it all. His hand swept out and circled before him, as if laying it all before her; and at the moment she noticed how awkward his gestures. Fine, wasn't it? Wouldn't think it possible, would you? Hundreds of varieties of trees—rare trees—sent to him from all over the world. All done right in the heart of the jungle! Nothing but jungle! People had laughed. Now look! She had seen as she rode along. What did she think? Great, wasn't it?

All morning he had been out in the pepper field. Was going to put out thousands of pepper vines. They would do well—this time. He had experimented. Five thousand holes, five thousand poles to be set—and manured.

He shouted all the while he sat down on the couch where he had been lying to read and got into his boots, and while he stood up, stamping heavily to set his feet. The spurs clicked when he stamped.

Then he strode to the veranda steps and greeted her.

To Nada it seemed more like coming home than the return to her father's house had been; but she had arrived a little suspicious of Seibert, and had expected to be watchful of him and keep aloof. She had felt that she owed that much to her father; besides, because of her father and the old enmity she had hardly expected Seibert would want her to come. Germans, she knew, could be brusque in their displeasure.

But with both hands—muscular, uncalloused, huge hands—out-thrust, with massive shoulders thrown back, and his whole face in a grin of welcome, he took her little gloved fingers and shook them, patted them with snap and slap that almost stung as he gazed at her with frank enjoyment; and he told her, just about as he had told her of the peppers, that she was beautiful—as much like her sister as two flowers from the same gardenia.

With a big hand under her arm he pushed her along the veranda. His spurs jangled. He talked. The voice was loud. The free hand waved about in hospitable flourishes.

She saw servant faces peering at her from beside moving curtains; then Oreena appeared in a doorway.

Oreena's little face was perfect as a cameo, and coloured as if the cameo was cut in amber. She had been sleeping, and now for a moment she looked with a puzzled, unseeing stare into the sunlight. Her small body was wrapped about from chin to heels in blue silk, and the gown's long, wide sleeves fell below her hands.

"Eii! Nada!"

Floppy slippers dropped from her feet, and she made a running leap for Nada, and there was an instant's tossing of tumbled hair, the streaming flash of blue silk as it swept away from her small, lithe body. She clutched Nada's neck, springing at her, on her, as if mad with joy. Only the fact that Seibert's hand supported her kept Nada from being thrown backwards. He laughed loudly, approving. The pat on Nada's back that he gave was like the affectionate slap on a horse's shoulder, and almost knocked out her breath. Oreena, too, seemed trying to squeeze her to death.

Nada had never seen her sister so tempestuously affectionate, and she was made delightfully happy.

"Come in," cried Seibert. "Come into the house here. A great fine house we have. Eh, Or'na?"

He stood massively. A big arm held open the door, and he grinned broadly as the entwined sisters went by. He followed them.