Читать книгу A Frontier Mystery - Mitford Bertram - Страница 4

“Ha, Glanton! Glad to see you!” cried the Major, shaking me heartily by the hand. “Why, I was beginning to wonder when we should see you again. Was afraid you had started again on some up-country trip, and by Jove, there are one or two things I want your opinion about. We’ll talk of them bye and bye.”

“All right, Major. Only too glad to be of use.”

He was a fine specimen of the best type of old soldier – tall, straight, handsome, hearty and straightforward in manner – in short a gentleman every inch of him. I had a great liking for him, and for his own sake alone would have gone far towards smoothing his difficulties and straightening things out for him no matter how crooked they might be, thanks to his own wrongheadedness. His wife was a good counterpart of him – without his wrongheadedness – and quite free from the fads and fussiness apparently inseparable from most elderly ladies, which render their presence and company a matter for resigned toleration rather than any sort of pleasure or advantage. To such Mrs Sewin was a rare and remarkable exception. The youngest daughter, Edith, was outwardly a complete contrast to her stately sister, being shorter, and plump and fair-haired, but very pretty – and sunny-natured to a degree. In fact I believe that to most men she would have proved the more attractive of the two.

“Have a glass of grog, Glanton, after your ride,” said the Major. “Well, and how’s trade?”

“So so. Much as usual. I’m thinking of a couple of months’ trip to the north of Zululand soon. I might pick up some good cattle in Hamu’s and Majendwa’s part, and Zulu oxen always find a good sale.”

“Into Zululand?” repeated Falkner, who had just entered. “By Jove, Glanton, I’d like to go with you. Wouldn’t I just.”

I hope I didn’t show that I wouldn’t like anything of the sort. I may have, for I was never a good actor, except in dealing with savages.

“That wouldn’t be impossible,” I answered. “But what about the farm?”

I read “Hang the farm!” as plain as possible in his face, though he hadn’t said it. What he did say was:

“Oh well. We might think out some plan so as to work it.”

“You must have had some very exciting adventures among the savages in your time, Mr Glanton,” said Mrs Sewin.

“The liveliest adventures I have ever had were among white men, and not among savages at all,” I answered. “But there, you must excuse me filling the rôle of the up-country yarner.”

“Mr Glanton is most provokingly and proverbially impossible to ‘draw,’ you know, mother,” said Miss Sewin, with a laugh and a shake of the head.

“That’s more than most fellows in his line are,” guffawed Falkner, in a way that was rather unpleasant, and, I thought, intentionally so, as he helped himself to a glass of grog.

“Come and have a look round the garden, Glanton,” said the Major. “We sha’n’t get dinner for nearly an hour, and it’ll help fill up the time. You girls coming?”

“Aïda, you go,” said the youngest. “Mother and I will see about getting dinner ready.”

Dusk was already beginning to fall, and there isn’t much dusk in that latitude. The scents of evening were in the air, the myriad distilling perfumes from the surrounding bush no less fragrant to my nostrils than those of the sweet-scented flowers which represented the Major’s favourite hobby; but this, you may be sure, I did not tell him. But to me it was an enchanted hour and an enchanted scene, as I furtively watched the tall graceful figure at my side, noting each changing attitude, from the poise of the well-set-on head to the delicate tapering fingers put forth to handle, or here and there pluck some blossom. The while I was listening to the old man’s enthusiastic dissertations, trying not to agree in the wrong place; trying, in short, to look as if I knew something about it all, yet not altogether succeeding, I fear, as I became aware when I caught the glance of Miss Sewin’s eyes, and the smile upon her sweet, half-averted face. Then the stars came out with a rush, and the jackals began to bay along the hillside in the gloom of the bush.

“Confound it!” grumbled the Major, looking upward. “It’s dark already; pitch dark, by Jove! and Glanton hasn’t seen half what I’ve been doing yet, since he was here last. You get no twilight at all in this infernal country. Well, I suppose we must go in.”

Nothing could be more pleasant and home-like than that cheerful, lighted room, as we sat at table. We talked about the country and surroundings, the life and its drawbacks, and the Major waxed reminiscent on byegone sport in India, and his anecdotes thereon interested me though I fear the others had heard them more than once before. Falkner was inclined to be extra friendly and had discarded his usual offhand and supercilious manner, which I own was wont to try my patience sorely, and questioned me repeatedly as to my projected trip into Zululand, to which I had incidentally referred. Afterwards the two girls played and sang – uncommonly well. Falkner too, sang a very good song or two, and altogether I found I was thoroughly enjoying myself, the said enjoyment being doubtless enhanced by an obtruding recollection of my lonely hut, away up the mountain, and evenings spent in my own company until such time as I should smoke myself to sleep.

“Mr Glanton, we would so much like to see your trading store,” said Edith, the youngest girl, when the music was ended.

I answered that there was little on earth to see there, that it was a greasy, dusty place, hardly fit for ladies, and so on, but that such as it was they would be more than welcome.

“And you will show us some Zulus for the occasion?” added her sister, with one of those glances which made me resolve to assemble half Tyingoza’s location if she set her heart upon it.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Only you mustn’t take me by surprise. It’s a rough and tumble place, and I might be taken just at the very moment when I couldn’t offer you a decent lunch.”

But they declared that this was just what they wanted – to take me by surprise, and see exactly how I lived, and so on. The while a desperate idea had come into my head, but, would it bear carrying out?

“Look here,” I said. “If you would really like to ride up there, it occurs to me I might show you something that would interest you – nothing to do with the store particularly. But I could collect a lot of Tyingoza’s people and scare up a regular native dance. They do it well, and it’s worth seeing, I can tell you.”

“Why that would be charming,” cried the youngest girl. “Aïda, we must go. Do you hear? Father, what do you think? Let’s all go, and make a day of it.”

“I was going to venture yet further, Major,” I said. “I was going to suggest that you make a night of it. There’s my hut – it’s very cool and comfortable – and I have a capital tent waggon. If the ladies could make shift with such by way of sleeping quarters, why we could turn in under a blanket in the store. It isn’t a luxurious bedroom, but I daresay, for one night, a couple of soldiers like yourselves could manage.”

“Rather,” cried Falkner enthusiastically. “That’s a ripping idea of yours, Glanton. What d’you think, uncle? Shall we fix up a day? No time like the present.”

“Well, I think the idea isn’t a bad one, if we are not putting you out, Glanton. But – what about the farm? We can’t leave it entirely to itself.”

This certainly was a difficulty. I thought for a moment; then I said:

“I might be able to straighten that for you, Major. I will send you down a man – a native, one of Tyingoza’s people, but as trustworthy as steel. You know, most of them are that way if put in a position of trust. Well you needn’t be afraid of anything going wrong – stocklifting and that – while he’s in charge. How’s that?”

“Capital!” went up from the girls.

“You seem to ‘straighten’ everything for us, Mr Glanton,” said the eldest, gratefully.

“Well this is a very small thing after all,” I protested. “I’m only afraid you will find the quarters a bit rough.”

But this they declared was nothing. It only remained to fix the day. They would enjoy it above all things, they repeated.

“You’ll have the same room as last time, Mr Glanton,” said Mrs Sewin, as she bade me good-night.

“Why, I was just thinking of going home,” I protested.

But this was over-ruled, and that unanimously. The Major wanted to have a talk with me, and couldn’t do it comfortably if I was in a hurry to be off all the time. Besides – what did it matter? Nobody would be wanting to do a deal during the night, so I might just as well remain where I was, and so on. Well, I didn’t want much pressing, and it was obvious my welcome hadn’t worn thin just yet.

“Let’s take the grog out on to the stoep, uncle,” said Falkner. “It’s cooler there.”

“What d’you think, Glanton?” said the Major, when we were comfortably seated outside, each with a glass of grog before him and a pipe of good Magaliesberg – than which there is no better tobacco in the world – in full blast. “Why is it I can’t do anything with these damned fellows of yours? Now in India I could make any sort of native do anything I wanted, and no bother about it. He had to, don’t you know.”

“Exactly, Major, he had to and these haven’t. Wherein lies all the difference.”

“I believe I was a damned fool to come and squat here at all,” he growled.

“I don’t agree with you, Major,” I said. “You’ve only got to try and understand them, and they’re all right. I don’t mean to say they’re perfect, no one is, but make the best of them. To begin with, learn the language.”

“Good Lord, I’m too old to begin learning languages.”

“Not a bit of it,” I said. “I knew a man once – he must have been about your age, Major, an old Indian, too, only he had been a civilian – who had gone stone blind late in life. But he had a hobby for languages, and I’m blest if he hadn’t taken up this one among others. He had got hold of the Bible in Zulu, done up by missionaries of course, and began putting all sorts of grammar cases to me. I own he fairly stumped me. I told him I didn’t know anything of Biblical Zulu – had always found that in use at the kraals good enough. Then he had the crow over me. But you ought to have a try at it, certainly your nephew ought.”

“By Jove, I believe I will,” growled Falkner. “Only it’d be an infernal grind.”

“Not much more grind than punching a boy’s head because he can’t understand you,” I said, “especially when the weather’s hot; and far more profitable. Still I can rather enter into your feelings. The feeling of helplessness when we can’t make out what the other fellow is talking about is prone to engender irritability. I was not guiltless myself in that line when I first went up-country. You set to work. Miss Sewin was saying this evening that she intended to.”

“Oh was she?” growled Falkner again, with renewed interest, and the glance he gave me was not at all friendly, I thought.

“Well, you take my tip, Major, and then I don’t think you’ll at all regret coming here. No, by Jove, I don’t.”

“You don’t, eh? Well I’m getting up a first-rate garden certainly. And the shooting around here isn’t bad of its kind.”

I hugged myself, metaphorically. Less than ever, by the experiences of a few hours, did I wish these people to give up in disgust.