Читать книгу The White Hand and the Black - Mitford Bertram - Страница 7

The older man started.

“What’s that?” he said quickly, looking from the one to the other.

Briefly she told him. This was a man not easily moved, but he was then.

“And I should have been lying there instead of that poor horse,” concluded the girl.

“I should think you would.” Then, to the stranger, “Well, sir, I don’t quite know what to say to you or how to put it—but I believe you can understand.”

The said stranger, almost writhing from the force of the hand grip which the other was administering to him, realised that he did understand. This strong, impassive-looking man was obviously moved to the core, but what seemed passing strange was that he refrained from any little outward and natural act of affection, or even word, towards his child who had just escaped a horrible death. No, that omission, indeed, he could not understand.

“Why, of course,” he answered. “But I’d better introduce myself. My name’s Elvesdon, and I’m the new magistrate at Kwabulazi, so we shall not be very distant neighbours. I hope, too, that we shall become very much better acquainted.”

“Same here. I’m Thornhill, and I own about thirteen thousand morgen (about double that number of acres), most of which you can see from where we stand, and a good deal of which is of no earthly use except to look at—or to paint,” with a smile at his daughter.

“It certainly is very good to look at,” said the stranger. “Does it hold much wild game, Mr. Thornhill?”

“Middling. See that line of krantz yonder?” pointing to a craggy wall, about a mile away. “Well, that’s all bored with holes and caves—I was going to say it was filled with tiger (leopard) like bee-grubs in a comb, but that’s a little too tall. Still there are too many. Are you a sportsman, Mr—Elvesdon? Though—you must be, after what I’ve just heard.”

“I’m death on it. Where I’ve come from there wasn’t any.”

“Where’s that?”

“The Sezelani. All sugar cane and coolies. Beastly hot, too. I’m jolly glad of this move.”

“Well I hope you’ll make up for it here. There’s a fair number of bushbuck in the kloofs—duiker and blekbok too, guinea fowl, and other small fry. So be sure and bring your gun over whenever you can and like.”

“Thanks awfully,” replied Elvesdon, thinking he would manage to do this pretty often.

They had reached the homestead. The house was a one-storeyed, bungalow-like building, with a thatched verandah running round three sides of it. It stood on a slope, and the ground in front fell away from a fenced-in bit of garden ground down a well-grown mealie land, whose tall stalks were loaded with ripening cobs. Then the wild bush veldt began. Black kloofs, dense with forest trees; bush-clad slopes, culminating in a great bronze-faced krantz frowning down in overhanging grandeur; here and there patches of open green as a relief to the profusion of multi-hued foliage—in truth in whatever direction the eye might turn, that which met it was indeed good to look at, as the stranger had said.

The said stranger, as they entered the house, was exercised by no small amount of curiosity. Of what did this household consist? he asked himself. The other members of the family, for instance, what were they like, he wondered? Like this girl—who had struck him as so unlike any other girl he had ever seen? Like her father—who in his own way seemed almost to stand unique? But beyond themselves there seemed to be nobody else in the house at all.

The room he was ushered into was cool and shaded. It was got up with innumerable knick-knacks. There were water-colour sketches on the walls—and framed photographic portraits placed about on easels. There was a piano, and other signs of feminine occupation. But nothing was overdone. The furniture was light and not overcrowded, thoroughly suitable to a hot climate. After the noontide glare outside, the room struck him as cool and restful to a degree—refined, too; in short a very perfect boudoir.

“Nice little room, isn’t it?” said his host rejoining him, for he had excused himself for a minute. “Yes, that portrait—that’s my eldest boy. Poor chap, he was killed in the Matabele rising in ’96. That other’s the second—I’ve only the two. He’s away at the Rand; making his fortune—as he thinks; fortunately he’s got none to lose.”

“What fine looking fellows,” said Elvesdon. “By Jove they are.”

The other smiled.

“That group there,” he went on, “represents Edala in various stages of growing up. You’ll recognise the latest.”

“Yes. It’s a splendid likeness.” The while he was thinking to himself, “Edala! what an out-of-the-way name. Edala! Well, it fits its owner anyway.”

“I daresay you’d like a cold splash—we’ll have dinner directly. Come this way. You’ll find everything in there,” opening the door of a spare room.

His host’s voice almost made Elvesdon start, so wrapped up was he in his new train of thought. It did not leave him, either, when he was splashing his head and face in a basin of cold water. Truly this was a strange beginning to his new term of office; for he had only been at Kwabulazi a few days. Well, it was a good one anyhow.

On entering the dining-room he did not know whether to feel surprised or not. Only three places were laid. There was no Mrs. Thornhill then? These two—father and daughter—were alone together.

But before they had got half through the meal Elvesdon became alive to something. There was not that freedom and cordiality between the two, that whole-souled intimacy of companionship, which under the circumstances might have been expected. A kind of constraint seemed to rest between them, and yet why? It was puzzling. Remembering the real emotion displayed by his host when the latter had learned what had occurred that morning, it was even more puzzling. He did not fail, however, to note that the affection seemed mostly on the parental side. This struck him as strange: nor did there appear to be anything to account for it. There was nothing of the tyrannical or even irritable type of parent about his host, who, on the contrary, seemed calm and quiet and considerate in everything he said or did; he himself had been greatly taken with him. What then could it mean?

Ah, now a solution presented itself. The girl had probably contracted some engagement, or wanted to, to which her father had objected. And in the result there was an estrangement between them. He had seen one or two cases of the kind before. The thought, however, seemed to depress him though half-unconsciously. Yet why should it? What could it possibly matter to him—he asked himself. Yes, what the devil could it matter to him? Thus pondering, he joined in the conversation in a half-absent kind of way, though wholly unconscious of any such frame of mind. The fact, however, did not escape his host, who was divided in opinion as to the cause.

“I suppose you’ve had a good deal of experience in the native department,” said the latter, when they had got into roomy cane-chairs on the verandah and pipes were in full blast. Edala had retired, announcing an intention of having forty winks and reappearing when it was cooler.

“Fair. I was on the Pondo border for a time. It was more interesting, in a way, still I’m glad to get back here.”

“What do you think of these rumours of unrest?” said Thornhill.

“There is unrest, and it wants careful handling. Still you haven’t got to believe everything you hear. I’ve been doing a round since I came, trying to get at the general feeling. I was at Tongwana’s kraal this morning and the old chap was profusely civil, so were all his people: in fact it was on my way back from there that I—er—first met your daughter.”

“Oh, Tongwana? Yes, he’s all right. By the way, I was forgetting. If you’ll excuse me for a minute I’ll send some boys down to collect your saddle and bridle.”

“Thanks. I daresay you could lend me some sort of a mount to get home on, could you?”

“Oh, you shan’t walk,” said Thornhill, drily, over his shoulder.

He soon returned, and the two sat chatting over things in general and the neighbourhood in particular; as to which latter Elvesdon was loud in his appreciation. It was delightful country, he declared, and this farm especially was charmingly situated. The other smiled.

“Well, ride over whenever you feel inclined. We shall always be delighted to see you,” the speaker had grown grave, and his hearer knew what he was thinking about. “I don’t know if you’re very hard-worked. I know that outlying Civil servants are not as a rule—your predecessor certainly wasn’t. So whenever you don’t know what else to do with yourself, why this isn’t an overpoweringly long ride. We might get up a day in the kloofs when the close time is over.”

Elvesdon jumped at this, and then Edala reappeared, stating two indisputable facts—that it was cooler, and, incidentally, tea-time. At last, with many a qualm of reluctance, he got up and declared it was time to go.

“Must you?” said the girl, with a quick lift of the eyes which he thought infinitely captivating.

“I’m afraid so, Miss Thornhill, though I do it with reluctance. Stern duty calls, you see. There’s no moon, and I don’t know this part of the country at all yet. I should get hopelessly entangled for the night in some most impenetrable part of the kloofs, and I have to hold Court early to-morrow; for there happens to be rather a lot to get through.”

“Edala, dear,” said Thornhill, “just sing out to them at the back to put Mr. Elvesdon’s saddle on—the horse I told them.”

The girl reappeared in a moment, and then good-byes were interchanged. To Elvesdon’s relief nothing more was said on the subject of his timely aid, but he was appreciative of a great cordiality of manner.

“Here’s something that’ll carry you, Mr. Elvesdon,” said Thornhill, as a horse was brought round to the stoep, a well groomed, capable looking beast with good paces. “You needn’t trouble to send him back again, if you’ll oblige me by accepting him. You lost your own on my account you know.”

But the other began to protest. Why all the horses in the world would be cheap at the price of what his own had been able to effect, he declared with, at that stage, somewhat unnecessary vehemence. Besides it seemed too much like accepting a reward for what he had done, though this he did not say.

“You are not offended, are you?” said Thornhill.

“Offended? No. But—er—”

“Well, I shall be if you refuse to do me this favour, so let’s have no more indaba on the subject,” rejoined Thornhill, shortly.

The other gave way. He saw no alternative, for the last thing in the world he desired was to offend Edala’s father. The latter’s next words made the situation easier.

“Hope we shall see you again soon. Remember you’ll always find a real welcome here at any time, so don’t stand on ceremony. Good-bye.”

The younger man echoed the word heartily as he rode away. And then something struck him as funny. He was accustomed to issuing orders to other people, and now the positions were reversed. He had been dictated to, and that by no official superior but by a stranger of a few hours’ acquaintance, and he had meekly done as he was told. Yes, it was funny.

The two stood looking after him as he disappeared down the bush path. Then the girl said:

“Father, what have you done? You’ve given away Ratels—yes, given him away. And you’ve often said you wouldn’t part with him for five times his real value.”

“Yes. But I’ve never said I wouldn’t part with him for fifty thousand times—for fifty million times his real value.”

He dropped a hand upon her shoulder—that was all—then turned abruptly and went inside. The girl standing there alone gazed forth upon the tossing splendours of the sunlit wilderness, but actually seeing nothing of them, for her eyes were dim and moist. A struggle was going on within her. Then the lips, which had begun to tremble, hardened into firm compression. The struggle was over—unfortunately.