There followed some tranquil days of which nothing broke the peaceful monotony. The children were extraordinarily tractable, perhaps because Mrs. van Cannan seemed too preoccupied to lay any injunctions upon them. True, Roddy made one of his mysterious disappearances, but it was not long before Christine, hard on his heels, discovered him emerging from an outhouse, where she later assured herself that he could have come to no great harm, for it was merely a big barn stacked with grain and forage, and a number of old packing cases. Nothing there to account for the expression he wore—that same suggestion of tears fiercely restrained which she had noticed when they were looking at the unmarked grave in the cemetery. It wrung her heart to see his young mouth pursed up to whistle a tune that would not come, the look of longing in eyes where only happiness and the divine contentment of childhood should dwell; but the boy volunteered no information, and she did not press him. She wanted his confidence, not to have him regard her as a sort of jailer.
Every day, in the cool of the early morning, while the others were still sleeping, he and she visited the graveyard, starting the good work of making it blossom like the rose, as Christine had promised. They planted lilies and geraniums over the little brothers, and edged the lonely, unmarked grave with a species of curly-leaved box common to that part of the country and which grew rapidly. It was Roddy's fancy, too, to cover this grave with portulaca—a little plant bearing starry flowers of vivid hues that live for a day only. He chose plants that bore only scarlet and golden blossoms.
"She liked those two colours," he told Christine, smiling. "She said that when we were babies we were all like that—very red, with yellowy golden hair."
Christine, looking at the bright head and the fresh cheeks so rare in a South African child, readily understood. But she could not help wondering, as before, at the loyal little heart that remembered so well the words and fancies of a dead woman—when all others forgot!
Nearly always on returning from these morning excursions they met Saltire, rapidly wreaking destruction upon the district. Already, scores of the prickly-pears through which they must wend their way were assuming the staggering attitude characteristic of them as the sap dried and they died of their wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing. Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in his famous picture of Napoleon in Hell, made wives and mothers brandish their menacing fists at the man who had robbed them of their loved ones. All wore a look that suggested both agony and revenge. Christine understood, at last, why the Kafirs hated to go about the land after dark, averring that the afflicted bushes threatened and chased them. She began herself to experience an inexplicable feeling of relief, as though at the overcoming of an enemy, when a great spire of smoke betokened the final uprooting and burning of a clump of bush. For fire was the ultimate element used to transform the pest from a malignant into a beneficent factor, and, as aromatic ash, it became of service to the land it had ruined so long. Almost, the process seemed an exposition of Job's words: "When thou hast tried me with fire, I shall come forth as gold."
It was a curious thing how the "personality" of the bushes appeared to affect them all. Saltire at his work gave the impression of a fighter concentrating on the defeat of an enemy. Roddy would dance for joy before each staggering bush. The impassivity of the natives departed from them when they stood about the funeral pyres, and clapping of hands and warlike chanting went heavenward with the smoke. Christine and Roddy often lingered to watch these rejoicings; indeed, it was impossible at any time to get the boy past Saltire and his gang without a halt. The English girl, while standing somewhat aloof, would nevertheless not conceal from herself the interest she felt in the forestry man's remarks, not only on the common enemy, but his work in general.
"They have a great will to live, Roddy—much stronger than you and I, because we dissipate our will in so many directions. I've met this determination before in growing things, though. There are plants in the African jungle that you have to track and trail like wild beasts and do murder upon before they will die. And this old prickly-pear is of the same family. If a bit of leaf can break off and fly past you, it hides itself behind a stone, hastily puts roots into the ground, and grows into a bush before you can say 'Jack Robinson.' Your farm will be a splendid place when we've got rid of all these and replaced them with the spineless plant. Prickly-pear without spines is a perfect food for cattle and ostriches in this climate."
Thus he talked to Roddy, as if the latter were already a man and in possession of his heritage—the wide lands of Blue Aloes; but always while he talked, he looked at and considered the girl who stood aloof, wearing her air of world-weariness like a veil over the youth and bloom of her.
And she, on her side, was considering and reading him, too. She liked him better, because, since that first night of Mr. van Cannan's departure, he had absented himself from the dinner-table. That showed some glimmer of grace in him. Still, there was far too much arrogance in his manner, she thought, and decided that he had probably been spoiled by too facile women. Nothing blunts the fine spiritual side of a man's character so rapidly as association with women of low ideals. The romance of her own life had been split upon that rock. She had known what it was to stand by and see the man she loved with all the pure idealism of youth wrecked by the cheap wiles of a high-born woman with a second-rate soul. Perhaps her misfortune had sharpened her vision for this defect in men. Certainly, it had tainted her outlook with disdain. She sometimes felt, as Pater wrote of Mona Lisa, that "she had looked upon all the world, and her eyelids were a little weary." At any rate, when she found Dick Saltire's blue eyes looking into hers so straightly and significantly that it almost seemed as if an arrow came glancing from him to her, she merely told herself, with an inward-smiling bitterness, that no doubt the same phenomenon occurred when he spoke to Mrs. van Cannan.
Some days after the departure of the master of the farm for the coast, the post-bag arrived from Cradock, and, as Mrs. van Cannan was still sleeping, it fell to Christine, as it had sometimes done before, to distribute the mail. Among her own large batch of home letters it was so unusual to find a South African one that she opened it immediately, and was astonished to discover it to be from Bernard van Cannan. It had been written from Cradock on the evening of the day he left the farm.
"DEAR MISS CHAINE:
"I want once more to commend to you the very special care of my children while I am away. My wife, not being very strong, is unable to see as much of them as she would wish, and I do not like her to be worried. But there are many dangers on a farm, and I have already, by most unhappy chance, lost two young sons. Both deaths occurred during absences of mine and were the result of accident, though, at the time, they were surrounded by every loving care and security. Perhaps, therefore, you will understand the kind of superstitious apprehension I feel about Roderick, who is the last and only one left to come after me in the old place. He has always needed special looking-after, being extremely curious and impulsive while, at the same time, nervous and reticent.
"Perhaps it is only my illness that makes me full of fears, but I can assure you that had it not been for the great confidence you have inspired in me from the first, I should not have left the farm, so anxious do I continually feel about the welfare of my third and last son. However, I trust in God I shall be back soon, better in health, to find that all is well.
"Do not worry my dear wife with this matter. She is of a disposition that cannot cope with sorrow and trouble, and I would not for the world cloud her happy outlook with my morbid fancies. Keep my confidence, and remember that I rely on you with all my heart to guard my little ones.
"Sincerely yours,
"BERNARD VAN CANNAN.
"P. S.—I append my last London address, and if I am detained for any time, I shall be glad to hear from you."
A vision of the gloomy-eyed man, twitching with pain and nerves, rose up before her eyes as she folded the letter, and she resolved to write to him at once, allaying his fears as much as possible by an assurance of her devotion. She was sitting in the summer-house at the time, the children beside her, bent over their morning lessons. Through the creeper-framed doorway, she could see the walls and veranda of the old farm, glaring white in the fierce sunlight, but with every line expressing such harmony as only the old Dutch architects seem to have had the secret of putting into the building of South African homesteads. Before the front door stood three gnarled oaks, which yet bore the marks of chains used by the early van Cannans to fasten up the cattle at night, for fear of the hostile Kafirs who at set of sun came creeping over the kopjes. Scores of fierce, man-eating dogs were kept to deal with the marauders, and there were still loopholes in the white walls from which those within had watched and defended.
But those days were long past. Nothing now in the gracious building, with its shady stoeps and high, red roof, toned melodiously by age, to betoken battle, murder, and sudden death. It seemed strange that sinister forebodings should attach themselves in any mind to such harmony of form and colour. Yet Christine held in her hand the very proof of such thoughts, and, what was more, knew herself to be obsessed by them when darkness took the land. For a moment even now, looking out at the brilliant sunshine, she was conscious of a falter in her soul, a moment of horrible loneliness, a groping-out for some human being stronger than herself of whom to take counsel. A thought of Saltire flashed across her. He looked strong and sane, kind and chivalrous. But could he be trusted? Had she not already learned in the bitter school of life that "Ye have no friend but resolution!"
A shadow fell across the doorway. It was Saxby, the manager. He gave her his pleasant, melancholy smile.
"I wonder if Mrs. van Cannan is up yet," he said, in his full, rich voice. "There are one or two farm matters I want to consult her about."
Christine looked at the watch on her wrist and saw that it was past eleven.
"Oh, I should think so, Mr. Saxby. The closing of all the shutters is usually a sign that she is up and about."
It is, in fact, a practice in all Karoo houses to close every window and shutter at about ten o'clock each morning, not throwing them open again until sunset. This keeps the interiors extraordinarily cool, and, as the walls are usually whitewashed, there is plenty of light.
"I expect I shall find her in the drawing-room," Saxby remarked, and passed on. Christine saw him leave again about half an hour later. Then the sound of waltz-music within the closed house told that Mrs. van Cannan was beguiling away the rest of the long, hot morning in a favourite fashion. At noon, the heat, as usual, made the summer-house untenable, and its occupants were driven indoors.
Lunch introduced the only excitement the quiet monotony of the day ever offered, when the men came filing into the soft gloom of the dining-room, bringing with them a suggestion of a world of work that still went on its way, come rain, come shine. All of them took advantage of the custom of the climate to appear coatless. Indeed, the fashion of shirts was sometimes so dÉcolletÉe as to be slightly embarrassing to English eyes. Only Saltire paid the company the compliment of unrolling his sleeves, buttoning the top button of his shirt, and assuming a tie for the occasion.
Everyone seemed of opinion that the summer rains were brewing and that was the reason of the insufferable heat.
"We'll have a couple of days of this," prophesied Andrew McNeil, "then down it will come with a vengeance."
"The land wants it, of course, but it will be a confounded nuisance to me," remarked the forestry expert.
"Oh, Mr. Saltire, you are insatiable in your work of murder," smiled his hostess. "Are you as merciless in all your dealings?" She looked at him with provoking eyes. Christine hardened herself to hear an answer in the same vein, but was as agreeably relieved as surprised.
"I want to get the work done," said Saltire briefly.
"I never knew any one so anxious to leave us before," grumbled Mrs. van Cannan prettily. "You must be terribly bored with us all."
"Never less in my life."
The answer was so impersonal as to be almost a sign of boredom in itself, and Mrs. van Cannan, little accustomed to have her charming advances met in such fashion, turned away with a pucker on her brow to a more grateful audience. At the same moment, an irresistible impulse drew Christine's glance to Saltire in time to receive one of those straight, significant looks that indescribably disturbed her. Nothing there of the impersonality his words had betrayed! It was a clear message from a man to a woman—one of those messages that only very strong-willed people who know what they want have the frankness, perhaps the boldness, to send. Even an indifferent woman would have been stirred to a knowledge of dangerous sweetness, and she knew that she had never been quite indifferent to the personal magnetism of Dick Saltire. As it was, she was shaken to the very soul of her. For a moment, she had the curious illusion that she had never lived before, never had been happy or unhappy, was safe at last in some sure, lovely harbour from all the hurts of the world. It was strange in the midst of everyday happenings, with the talk and clatter of a meal going on, to be swept overwhelmingly away like that to a far place where only two people dwelt—she and the man who looked at her. And before the illusion was past, she had returned a message to him. She did not know what was in her look, but she knew what was in her heart.
Almost immediately it was time to take the children and go. Mrs. van Cannan delayed them for a moment, giving some directions for the afternoon. If Christine could have seen herself with the children clinging to her, she would have been surprised that she could appear so beautiful. Her grace of carriage and well-bred face had always been remarkable, but gone were disdain and weariness from her. She passed out of the room without looking again at Dick Saltire, though he rose, as always, to open the door for her.
An afternoon of such brazen heat followed that it was well to be within the shelter of the shuttered house. But outside, in the turmoil of dust and glare, the work of the farm went on as usual. Christine pictured Saltire at his implacable task, serene in spite of dust and blaze, with the quality of resolution in his every movement that characterized him, the quality he had power to put into his eyes and throw across a room to her. The remembrance of his glance sent her pale, even now in the quiet house. Only a strong man, sure of himself and with the courage of his wishes, would dare put such a message into his eyes, would dare call boldly and silently to a woman that she was his raison d'Être, that, because of her, the dulness and monotony of life had never bored him less, that he had found her, that she must take of and give to him. She knew now that he had been telling her these things ever since they had met, but that she had turned from the knowledge, until, at last, in an unguarded moment, it had reached and overwhelmed her, flooding her soul with passionate joy, yet filling her with a peace and security she had never known, either in the old farmhouse or since the long-ago day when all her brave castles of youth and love had crashed down into the dust. Gone now was unbelief, and disdain, and fear of terror that stalked by night; a rock was at her back, there was a hand to hold in the blackest darkness. Never any more need she feel fear and spiritual loneliness. Withal, there was the passionate joy of adventure, of exploration in sweet, unknown lands of the heart, the launching of a boat upon a sea of dreams. Life sang to Christine Chaine like a nightingale under the stars.
How tenderly and patiently she beguiled the heat-weary children throughout that long afternoon! There was no feeling of haste upon her. She knew that sweetness was travelling her way, that "what is for thee, gravitates toward thee," and is vain to seek before the appointed hour. It might come as even-song to a seemingly endless day, or dawn following a fearsome night. But it was coming. That was all that mattered!
The directions Mrs. van Cannan had given, as they left the luncheon, were to the effect that, when the siesta hour was over, the children were to have possession of the drawing-room until it was cool enough for them to go for their accustomed walk. This plan was to continue as long as the hot weather lasted.
"I think it is not very healthy for any of you," she said amiably, "to stick all day in a room you have to sleep in at night."
Christine could not help being surprised at her giving up the coolest and quietest room in the house, and one that had hitherto been forbidden ground to the children. However, here they were, installed among gaily cretonned furniture, the little girls dashing about like squirrels in a strange cage, Roddy, apparently more at home, prowling softly around, examining things with a reverent yet familiar air.
"I remember when we used to come here every day," said Rita suddenly, and stood stock-still with concentrated eyes, like one trying to catch the memory of a dream. "When was it, Roddy?"
He looked at her steadily.
"When our old nannie was here."
Rita fixed her blue eyes on his.
"There was someone else here, too," she insisted.
"Sophy always brought us here," he repeated mechanically.
"I remember old Sophy," murmured Rita thoughtfully. "She cried dreadfully when she went away. She was not allowed to kiss us because she had turned all silver colour." She trilled into gay laughter. "Mamma told me that it might have turned us all silver, too."
"I kissed her before she went, anyway!" burst from Roddy fiercely. "And I would not have cared if it had turned me to silver."
Christine glanced wonderingly at him, astonished at this new theme of silver.
"But if she went away, how is it that she is buried here, Roddy?"
"She isn't."
"But the grave we covered with portulaca—" She stopped abruptly, for the boy's face had assumed the look she could not bear—the look of enduring that only those hardened to life should know. "Come and listen to this story of a magic carpet on which two children were carried over strange lands and cities," she said gently, and drew them all round her, with an arm through Roddy's.
The windows and shutters were thrown open at sunset, and the children had their tea in the dining-room. Afterward, they went for a long walk across the sands toward the kopjes, which had receded into distance again and in the west were turning purple with mauve tops. But the rest of the sky was coloured a threatening greenish bronze, with monstrous-shaped clouds sprawled across it; and the air, though sunless, was still sand-laden and suffocating, with the promise of storm.
It would have been easy for Christine to take the children toward the vicinity in which Saltire was occupied and where he would now be putting up his instruments and dismissing his workers for the night, but some instinct half modest, half self-sacrificing made her postpone the happiness of seeing him again, and guided her feet in an opposite direction. She was certain that, though he had refrained from dining at the farm except for the one night of Mr. van Cannan's departure, she would see him there that evening, and she dressed with special care and joy in the beauty of her hair, her tinted, curving face, and the subtle glamour that she knew she wore as the gift of happiness.
"How sweet it is to be young and desirable—and desired by the one man in the world!" was the half-formed thought in her mind as she combed her soft, cloudy black hair high above her face and fixed it with a tall amber comb. But she would not converse too clearly with her heart. Enough that she had heard it singing in her breast as she had never thought to hear it sing again. She was glad of the excuse of the heavy heat to discard her usual black gown and be seen in a colour that she knew belonged to her by right of her black hair and violet eyes—a deep primrose-yellow of soft, transparent muslin.
Saltire was late for dinner, but he came, as she had known he would, taking his usual place next to Mrs. van Cannan and almost opposite Christine, who, for the evening meal, was always expected to sit at the main body of the table. She was busy at the moment hearing from Mr. McNeil all about the process of ostrich-feather plucking which was to begin next day, but she did not miss a word of the late comer's apologies or the merry raillery with which they were met by his hostess. The latter, as usual, gathered unto herself every remark uttered at the table, and the attentions of every man, though she never bothered much about old Andrew McNeil. But if she had the lip-service, Christine was very well aware to whom was accorded, that night, the service of the eyes.
Every man there had become aware of the youth and beauty which, till that day, she had worn as if veiled, and they were paying the tribute that men will proffer until the end of time to those two gifts of the gods. She knew it without vanity, but also without embarrassment, for she had tasted triumph before in a world more difficult to please than this, surrounded by opponents worthier of her steel than Isabel van Cannan. The little triumph only pleased her in that she could offer it as a gift to the man she loved. For here is another eternal truth, that all men are one in pride of possession of that which excites envy and admiration in other men. All women know this with a gladness that is salted by sorrow.
Saltire's eyes were the only ones she could not meet with serenity. She felt his glance on her often, but always when she tried to lift hers to meet it, her lids seemed weighted by little heavy pebbles.
She meant to overcome this weakness, though, and look at him even as she had answered at noon; but, in the middle of dinner, while she yet strove against the physical inability, her resolution was disturbed by a strange occurrence. A wild scream of fear and horror came ringing from the nursery. Without a thought for anything but that it was Roddy's voice, Christine sprang from the table. Down the long passage and into the nursery she ran, and, almost bursting into the room, caught the boy in her arms. He was not screaming now, but white as death and staring with fearful eyes at the bed, on which the bedclothes were pulled back, with Meekie peering over it. The two little girls, round-eyed and frightened, were sitting up in their cots. For a moment, Roddy stayed rigid in her arms; then he hid his face against her arm and broke into convulsive sobs.
"It's a big spider—all red and black—like the one that bit Bernard!"
And, in fact, from where she stood, Christine could see the monstrous thing, with its black, furry claws, protruding eyes, and red-blotched body, still crouching there in a little hollow at the end of the bed. Only, the person leaning over examining it now was not Meekie but Saltire, who had reached the nursery almost on her heels.
"I put my foot against it and touched its beastly fur!" cried Roddy, and suddenly began to scream again.
"Roddy! How dare you make that abominable noise?"
Mrs. van Cannan's voice fell like a jet of ice-cold water into the room. Behind her in the doorway loomed the tall figure of Saxby, the manager, with McNeil and the others. Christine's warm heart would never have suggested such a method of quieting the boy, but it had its points. Roddy, though still shaking and ashen, stood up straight and looked at his mother.
"All about a silly spider!" continued the latter, with cutting scorn. "I am ashamed of you! I thought you were brave, like your father."
That flushed Roddy to his brows.
"It has fur—red fur," he stammered.
"You deserve a whipping for your cowardice," said Mrs. van Cannan curtly, and walked over to the bed. "The thing is half dead, and quite harmless," she said.
"Half dead or half drunk," McNeil jocosely suggested. "I never saw a tarantula so quiet as that before."
"The question is how long would it have stayed in that condition?" said Saltire significantly. "For you are mistaken about its harmlessness, Mrs. van Cannan. It is one of the most poisonous and ferocious of its tribe."
They had got the strangely sluggish beast off the bed by knocking it with a stick into an old shoe, and were removing it. Christine only vaguely heard the remarks, for Roddy hid his eyes while it was being carried out, and was trembling violently against her. It seemed amazing to her that Mrs. van Cannan did not realize that there was more than mere cowardice in his behaviour. The trouble was so plainly psychological—the memory of the loss of a loved little brother subtly interwoven with horror of that particular species of venomous insect. Christine herself had a greater hatred of spiders than of any creeping things, and well understood the child's panic of disgust and fear. It filled her with indignation to hear Mrs. van Cannan turn once more and lash the boy with a phrase before she swept from the room.
"Miserable little coward!"
In a moment, the girl was kneeling on the floor beside the unhappy child, holding him tight, whispering words of love and comfort.
"No, no, darling; it is only that she does not understand! We will explain to her—I will tell her later why you hated it so. Wait till your daddy comes back. I am sure he will understand."
So she strove to comfort him, while Meekie coaxed the little girls back to the horizontal attitude under their sheets.
"Don't make me go back into that bed," whispered Roddy fearfully.
"No; of course not. Don't worry; just trust me, darling!" She turned to Meekie. "I will stay with them now, Meekie. You may go."
"But has the missy had her dinner?" asked the Cape woman politely.
"I have had all I want, thank you, Meekie."
The thought of going back to the dinner-table—to eat and join in the talk and laughter while this small boy whom she loved stayed alone with his wretchedness revolted her. Perhaps later, when he slept, she might slip out into the garden for a while. In the meantime, she beguiled him over to her own bed, and having taken off the coverlet to show him that it held no lurking horrors, she made him get in and curl up, and she knelt beside him, whispering softly so as not to disturb the others, reassuring him of her belief in his courage whilst understanding his horror, confessing her own hatred of spiders, but urging him to try and fight against his fear of them. She told him stories of her own childhood, crooned little poems to him, and sang old songs softly, hoping and praying that he would presently fall asleep. But time slipped by, and he remained wide-eyed, gripping her hand tightly, and only by the slightest degrees relaxing the nervous rigour of his body under the coverlet. Suddenly, he startled her by a strange remark:
"If I could only get into the pink palace with Carol, I'd be all right."
The girl looked down into the distended pupils gazing so wistfully at her, and wondering what new psychological problem she had to deal with. She knew she must go very warily, or defeat her own longing to help him. At last, she said very tenderly,
"The world is full of pink palaces, Roddy, but we do not always find them until we are grown up."
He looked at her intently.
"Carol found one at the bottom of the dam," he whispered slowly. "He is there now; it's only his body that is buried in the graveyard."
She smoothed his hair gently with her hand.
"Carol is in a more beautiful palace than any we find here on earth, darling."
The secret, elfin expression crossed his face, but he said nothing.
"And you must not believe that about the dam," she warned him gravely. "There is nothing at the bottom of it but black mud, and deep water that would drown you, too, if you went in."
"I know the palace is there," he repeated doggedly. "I have seen it. The best time to see it is in the early morning or in the evening. All the towers of it are pink then, and you can see the golden wings of the angels shining through the windows."
"That is the reflection of the pink-and-gold clouds in the sky at dawn and sunset that you see, dear silly one. Will you not believe me?"
He squeezed her hand lovingly.
"Mamma has seen it, too," he whispered. "You know she was with Carol when he fell in, and she saw him go into the door of the palace and be met by all the golden angels. She tried to get him back, but she cannot swim, and then she came running home for help. Afterward, they took Carol's body out and buried him, but, you know, he is really there still. Mamma has seen him looking through the windows—she told me—but you must not tell any one. It is very secret, and once I thought I saw him, too, beckoning to me."
Christine was staggered. That so dangerous an illusion had been fostered by a mother was too bewildering, and she hardly knew how to meet and loyally fight it. It did not take her long to decide. With all the strength at her command, she set to work to clear away from his mind the whole fantastical construction. He clung to it firmly at first, and, in the end, almost pleaded to be left with the belief that he had but to step down the dam wall and join his brother in the fair pink palace. She realized now what tragedy had been lurking at her elbow all these days. Remembering the day when she had caught him up at the brink of the dam, she turned cold as ice in the heat-heavy room. A moment later, she returned to her theme, her explanations, her prayers for a promise from him that never, never would he go looking again for a vision that did not exist. At last he promised, and almost immediately fell asleep.
As for Christine Chaine, she stayed where she was on the floor, her head resting on the bed in sheer exhaustion, her limbs limp. All thought of going into the garden had left her. Sitting there, stiff-kneed and weary, she thought of Saltire's eyes, and realized that there had come and gone an evening which she must count for ever among the lost treasures of her life. Yet she did not regret it as she rose at last and looked down by the dim light on the pale, beautiful, but composed little face on the pillow.
She lay long awake. Roddy's bed was too short for her, and there was no ease in it, even had her mind and heart been at rest. All the fantasies she had beguiled from the boy's brain had come to roost in her own, with a hundred other vivid and painful impressions. The night, too, was fuller than usual of disquietude. The wind, which had been rising steadily, now tore at the shutters and rushed shrieking through the trees. There was a savage rumble of thunder among the hills, and, intermittently, lightning came through the shutter-slats.
When, above it all, she heard a gentle tapping, and sensed the whispering presence without, her cup of dreadful unease was full. But she was not afraid. She rose, as she had done one night before, and put on her dressing-gown. For a while, standing close to the shutters, she strained her ears to catch the message whose import she knew so well. The idea of speaking to someone or something as anxious as herself over Roddy had banished all horror. She longed for an interview with the strange being without. There was nothing to do but attempt, as before, to leave the house by the front door.
Down the long passage and through the dining-room she felt her way, moving noiselessly. When she came to the door, she found it once again with the bar hanging loose. More, it was ajar, and stirring (sluggishly, by reason of its great weight) to the wind. But her hand fell back when she would have opened it wide, for there were two people in the blackness of the porch, bidding each other good-night with kisses and wild words. Clear on a gust of wind came Isabel van Cannan's voice, fiercely passionate.
"I hate the place. Oh, to be gone from it, Dick! To be gone with you, my darling! When—when?"
He crushed the question on her lips with kisses and whisperings.
Christine Chaine stole back from whence she came, with the strange and terrible sensation that her heart was being crushed between iron fingers and was bleeding slowly, drop by drop, to death. Once more, life had played her false. Love had mocked her and passed by on the other side.
Some of the men wondered, next day, how they could have had the illusion that Miss Chaine was a beautiful girl. The two Hollanders, who were great friends, discussed the matter after lunch while they were clipping feathers from the ostriches. One thing was quite clear to them both: she was just one of those cold Englishwomen without a drop in her veins of the warmth and sparkle that a man likes in a woman. Mrs. van Cannan now—she was the one! Still, it was a funny thing how they should have been taken in over Miss Chaine. Someone else had been taken in, too, however, and with a vengeance—that fellow Saltire, with his "sidey" manners. He had got a cold douche, if you like, at the hands of the proud one. They had all witnessed it. Thus and thus went the Dutchmen's remarks and speculations, and they chuckled with the malice of schoolboys over the discomfiture of Saltire. For it was well known to them and to the other men that the Englishman had ridden off, in the cool hours of the dawn, to Farnie Marais' place about ten miles away, to get her some flowers. He wanted to borrow an instrument, he said, but it was funny he should choose to go to Marais', who was more famous for the lovely roses he grew for the market than for any knowledge of scientific instruments. Funny, too, that all he had been seen to bring back was a bunch of yellow roses that must have cost him a stiff penny, for old Farnie did not grow roses for fun.
No one had seen Saltire present the roses (that must have happened in the dining-room before the others came in); but all had marked the careless indifference with which they were scattered on the table and spilled on the floor beside the governess's chair. She looked on calmly, too, while the little girls, treating them like daisies, pulled several to pieces, petal by petal. Only the boy Roderick had appeared to attach any worth to them. He rescued some from under the table, and was overheard to ask ardently if he might have three for his own. The answer that he might have them all if he liked was not missed by any one in the room, though spoken in Miss Chaine's usual quiet tones. It might have been an accident that she walked over some of the spilled roses as she left the room, but certainly she could not have shown her mind more plainly than by leaving every single one behind her. Roddy only, with a pleased and secret look upon his face, carried three of them away in a treasured manner.
Whatever Saltire's feelings were at the affront put upon him, he gave no sign. He was not one who wore his emotions where they could be read by all who ran, or even by those who sat and openly studied him with malice and amusement. His face was as serene as usual, and his envied gift of turning events of the monotonous everyday veld life into interesting topics of conversation remained unimpaired. He had even risen, as always, with his air of careless courtesy, to open the door for the woman who walked over his flowers.
The fact remained, as the manager said to the foreman after lunch, that he had certainly "caught it in the neck," and must have felt it somewhere. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he merely congratulated himself that the little scene when he had given the roses to Miss Chaine had been lost by everyone except the children, who were too young and self-engrossed to value its subtlety.
Either by accident or design, he had come to lunch a little earlier than usual, and as Miss Chaine and the children were always in their seats a good ten minutes before the rest of the party, it was quite simple for him, entering quietly and before she even knew of his presence, to lay the bunch of fragrant roses across her hands. A sweep of heavy delicious perfume rose to her face, and she gave a little rapturous "Oh!"
"I thought you might like them," said Saltire, with a sort of boyish diffidence that was odd in him. "They are just the colour of the dress you wore last night."
In an instant, her face froze. She looked at him, with eyes from which every vestige of friendliness or liking had completely disappeared, and said politely, but with the utmost disdain:
"Thank you, I do not care for them. Pray give them where they will be appreciated."
She pulled her hands from under the lovely blooms and pushed them away as if there were something contaminating in their touch. Some fell on the table, some on the floor. For a moment, Saltire seemed utterly taken aback, then he said carelessly:
"Throw them away if you like. They were meant for you and no one else."
She gave him a curiously cutting glance, but spoke nothing. As the sound of voices told of the approach of the other men, he walked to his place without further remark, and had already taken his seat when Mrs. van Cannan, followed by Saxby, entered. They were talking about Saxby's wife, and Mrs. van Cannan looked infinitely distressed.
"I am so sorry. I will go and sit with her this afternoon and see if I can cheer her up," she said.
"It will be very kind of you," said Saxby gratefully. "I have never known her so low."
"It must be the weather. We are all feeling the heat terribly. If only the rains would break."
"They are not far off," said Andrew McNeil cheerfully. "I prophesy that tonight every kloof will be roaring full, and tomorrow will see the river in flood."
"In that case, the mail had better go off this evening at six," said Mrs. van Cannan. "It may be held up for days otherwise. I hope everyone has their letters ready? Have you, Miss Chaine?"
"I have one or two still to write, but I can get through them quickly this afternoon."
Christine avoided looking directly at her. She felt that the woman must see the contempt in her eyes. It was hard to say which she detested more of the two sitting there so serenely cheerful—the faithless wife and mother, or the man who ate another man's salt and betrayed him in his absence. It made her feel sick and soiled to be in such company, to come into contact with such creeping, soft-footed, whispering treachery. She ached to get away from it all and wipe the whole episode from her mind. Yet how could she leave the children, leave Roddy, desert the father's trust? She knew she could not. But very urgently she wrote after lunch to Mr. van Cannan, begging him to return to the farm as soon as his health permitted and release her from her engagement. She expressed it as diplomatically as she was able, making private affairs her reason for the change; but she could not and would not conceal the fervency of her request.
There was a brooding silence in the room where she sat writing and thinking. Roddy, for once, tired out from the night before, slept under his mosquito-net, side by side with the little girls, and Christine, looking at his beautiful, classical face and sensitive mouth, wondered how she would ever be able to carry out her plan to leave the farm. Who would understand him as she did, and protect him? Even the father who loved him had not known of the secret, fantastic danger of the dam. And the woman who should have destroyed the fantasy had encouraged it! But God knew what was in the heart of that strange woman; Christine Chaine did not—nor wished to. All she wished was that she might never see her again. As for Saltire, her proud resolve was to blot him from her memory, to forget that he had ever occupied her heart for a moment. But—O God, how it hurt, that empty, desecrated heart! How it haunted her, the face she had thought so beautiful, with its air of strength and chivalry, that now she knew to be a mockery and a lie!
She sat in the shuttered gloom, with her hands pressed to her temples, and bitter tears that could no longer be held back sped down her cheeks. In all the dark hours since she had stolen back to the nursery, overwhelmed by the discovery of a hateful secret, she had not wept. Her spirit had lain like a stricken thing in the ashes of humiliation, and her heart had stayed crushed and dead. "Cold as a stone in a valley lone." Now it was wakened to pain once more by the scent of three yellow roses carefully placed by Roddy in a jug on the table. The scent of those flowers told her that she must go wounded all her life. She could "never again be friends with roses." He had even spoiled those for her. How dared he? Oh, how dared he come to her with gifts of flowers in his hands straight from a guilty intrigue with another man's wife?
The children stirred and began to chirrup drowsily, and she hastily collected herself, forcing back her tears and assuming the expressionless mask which life so often makes women wear. She was only just in time. A moment later, Isabel van Cannan came into the room with a packet of letters in her hands.
"Oh, Miss Chaine," she said, with her pretty, child-like air, "would it be too much to ask you to take down these letters to the store presently? The mail is to leave about four o'clock. I have to go out myself by and by, but the Saxbys' house is in the opposite direction, as you know, and I am really not able to knock about too much in this heat."
"Certainly I will take them," said Christine. "But the children?"
"They must not go, of course. Indeed, I would not ask you to go out in this blaze, but I don't like to trust letters with servants. There is no hurry, however. Finish your own letters first, then bring the children to my room. They will amuse themselves there all right."
By the time Christine had donned a shady hat and gloves, Mrs. van Cannan had made out a long list of articles she required at the store. The household things were to be sent in the ordinary way, but she begged Christine to choose some coloured cottons that she required for new pinafores for the little girls and bring them along, also to look through the stock of note-paper for anything decently suitable, as her own stock had given out. It was the type of errand Christine was unaccustomed to perform and plainly foreign to her recognized duties; but it was difficult to be unobliging and refuse, so she took the letters and the list and departed.
The store was a good half-mile off and the going (in hot weather) not very fast. Then, when she got there, the storekeeper was busy with his own mail, and she was kept waiting until various goods had been packed into the cart before the door and driven away with the mail behind four prancing mules. Looking out cottons and writing-paper occupied some further time. Stores on farms are poky places, and the things always hidden away in inaccessible spots. At any rate, the best part of an hour had passed before Christine was again on her way home, and she had an uneasy feeling that she had been too long away from the children, especially from Roddy. Suddenly, her haste was arrested by an unexpected sight. A tiny spot of colour lay right in her pathway on the ground. It was only a yellow rose-leaf, but it brought a catch in Christine's breath and her feet to an abrupt halt. How had it come there? If it had fallen from one of Roddy's roses, it meant that he had been out of doors since she left! That set her hurrying on again, but, as she walked, she reflected that of the many roses left in the dining-room, some might easily have been carried off by the servants and leaves dropped from them. Still, she was breathless and rather pale when she reached the house, wasting not a moment in finding her way to Mrs. van Cannan's room.
Rita and Coral were amusing themselves happily, winding up a tangle of bright-coloured silks. But Roddy was gone! Neither was Mrs. van Cannan there.
Christine sat down rather suddenly, but her voice gave no sign of the alarm she felt.
"Where is Roddy?"
"He went out," answered Rita, perching herself upon Christine. "Mamma is going to give us each a new dolly if we get this silk untangled for her."
"How long ago did Roddy go?"
"Just after you went. But you mustn't be cross with him; Mamma gave him permission."
"Mamma is gone, too, to see poor Mrs. Saxby," prattled Coral.
Christine put them gently away from her.
"Well, hurry up and earn your new dollies," she counselled, smiling; "I'll be back very soon to help you."
In the dining-room, she looked for the discarded roses and found them gathered in a dying heap on a small side-table. In the nursery, she found two of Roddy's roses in the jug. The third was missing!
Of one thing she felt as certain as she could feel of anything in the shifting quicksands of that house, and that was that Roddy had not gone to the dam, for he had promised her earnestly, the night before, that never again would he go there without her. Could he, then, have gone to the cemetery? Even that seemed unlikely, for he loved her to go with him on his excursions thither. Where else, then? The rose-leaf she had passed on the road stuck obstinately in her memory, and now she suddenly remembered that the place she had seen it was near the barn from whence she had once found Roddy emerging. Perhaps he had gone there to amuse himself in his own mysterious fashion. He might even have been there when she passed. Oh, why had she not looked in? But the omission was easily rectified. In two minutes she was out of doors again, walking rapidly the way she had come.
Roddy was not in the barn, however, and it seemed at a glance as harmless a place as she had thought it before. An end of it was full of forage, and one side piled high with old farm-implements and empty cases. Rather to the fore of the pile stood one large packing case, sacking and straw sticking from under its loose lid. Christine had just decided there was nothing here to warrant her scrutiny when, lying in front of this case, she saw something that drew her gaze like a magnet. It was another yellow rose-leaf.
"Roddy!" she cried, and was astonished at the sharp relief in her voice, for she had suddenly made up her mind that the boy was there hiding from her. There was no answer to her call. Very slowly then she went over and lifted the lid of the case. It was quite loose, and edged with a fringe of strong nails that had once fastened it to the box, but which now were red with rust. A quantity of sacking, of the kind used for winding about fragile goods, lay heaped at the top and came away easily to her hand, exposing that which lay firmly wedged at the bottom. What she had expected to find she did not know. What she did find astonished her beyond all things. It was a beautifully chiselled white marble tombstone in the shape of a cross. The whole of the inscription was clear of dust or any covering save one fading yellow rose. Awed, deeply touched, and feeling herself upon the verge of a mysterious revelation, Christine lifted Roddy's yellow rose and read the simple gold-lettered inscription:
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED WIFE, CLARICE VAN CANNAN (BORN QUENTIN), WHO DIED AT EAST LONDON, JUNE 7, 19—, AND WAS BROUGHT BACK TO REST NEAR HER SORROWING HUSBAND AND CHILDREN. (AGED 27)
The date of death was two years old.
Much that had been dark became clear to Christine. She understood at last. The woman whose sad fate was here recorded, cut off at twenty-seven—that fairest period in a happy woman's life—was Roddy's mother, the mother of all the little van Cannan children, living and dead. The woman who had ousted her memory from all hearts save loving, loyal Roddy's was the second wife and stepmother.
Much in the attitude of the big, blond, laughing woman who reigned now at Blue Aloes, false to her husband, careless of the fate of his children, was accounted for, too. The sorrows of the van Cannans had never touched her. How should they? Had not Christine heard from her own lips, the night before, the confession of her love for another, and her hatred of Bernard van Cannan's home. How, then, should she love Bernard van Cannan's children?
The cruel taunt of cowardice she had flung at Roddy was explained. The boy's sensitive, loyal nature was a book too deep for her reading, the memory of his loved ones too sweet and tenacious for her to tamper with. Nevertheless, she had understood him well enough to set a bond on his honour never to speak of the dead woman who slept in the unmarked grave while her tombstone lay in the rubble of an outhouse. The spell by which she had won the man to forgetfulness and neglect was not the same as that by which she had induced silence in the boy. A promise had been wrung from him—perhaps even under duress! Suddenly, terror swept over Christine Chaine. It was revealed to her, as in a vision, that the pink-and-white woman who laughed with such childlike innocence by day and whispered so passionately to her lover by night could be capable of many things not good for those who stood in the way of her wishes.
Why had two of the van Cannan sons died sudden deaths? Why was the lure of a pink palace at the bottom of the dam fostered in the third? How had the tarantula come into his bed, and why had someone said that it acted like a thing drugged or intoxicated, and that, when it woke up, it would have been a bad lookout for Roddy?
"God forgive me!" cried the distracted girl to herself. "Perhaps I am more wicked than she, to harbour such thoughts!"
Then, as if at a call that her heart heard rather than her ears, she found herself running out of the barn and across the veld in the hot, stormy sunshine, in the direction of the Saxbys' bungalow.
She had never been there before, though often, in their walks, she and the children had passed within a stone's throw of the little wood-and-iron building. The door was always shut, and the windows hidden by the heavy creeper that covered in the stoep. She had often thought what a drab and dreary life it must be for a woman to live hidden away there, and even the children never passed without a compassionate allusion to "poor Mrs. Saxby, always shut up there alone."
A dread of seeing the sad, disfigured creature seized her now, as she reached the darkened stoep, and held her back for a moment. She stood wondering why she had come and how she could expect to find Roddy there where the children had never been allowed to penetrate. But, in the very act of hesitation, she heard the boy's voice ring out.
"No, mamma; please don't make me do it!"
In a couple of swift steps she was in the stoep and her hand on the knob of the door. But the door would not open. There were two narrow windows that gave onto the stoep, and, without pause, she flew to the one that she judged to be in the direction of the child's voice and laid hands upon it. It was closed and curtained with thick blue muslin, but there were no shutters, and to her forceful push the lower part jerked up, and the curtains divided. She found herself standing there, the silent spectator of a scene in which all the actors were silent, too amazed or paralyzed by her unexpected appearance.
