“I’m very sorry to hear that. What is wrong? Heart?”
“Yes. But I am boring you with all these family details, but having been Brian’s school chum seems to make you almost as one of ourselves.”
“Pray rid yourself of the impression that you are boring me, Miss Matterson – on the contrary, I am flattered. But I must not obtain your good opinion under false pretences. The fact is, Brian and I were not exactly school chums. There was too much difference between our ages – at that time, of course; which makes it all the more friendly and kind of him to have brought me here now.”
“Oh, that doesn’t make any difference. If you weren’t chums then you will be now, so it’s all the same.”
Then we talked about other things, and to my inquiries relating to this new land – new to me, that is – Beryl gave ready reply.
“You will have to return the favour, Mr Holt,” she said with a smile. “There are many things I shall ask you about by-and-by. After all, this sort of life is a good deal outside the world, and I have never been to England, you know. I am only a raw Colonial.”
I forget what answer I made; probably it was an idiotic one. But the idea of associating “rawness” with this well-bred, self-possessed, attractive girl at my side, seemed so outrageous that in all probability I overdid the thing in striving to demonstrate its absurdity.
On regaining the house we found Brian, who had just returned from counting in the flocks. He was not alone. Two Kafirs – tall, finely-built savages, their blankets and persons coloured terra-cotta red with ochre – stood at the steps of the stoep conversing with him, the mellow bass of their sonorous language and their far from ungraceful appearance and attitude lending another picturesque element to the rich unfamiliarity of the surroundings. They, however, were just taking their leave, bestowing upon us a quick, inquisitive glance, and a farewell salutation as they turned away.
“Two more of Kuliso’s wandering lambs, Beryl,” said Brian, with a significant laugh, as we joined him. “Yet none of ours, or sheep either, have vanished this time, so I suppose we ought to consider ourselves fortunate. The count is correct. By the way, Holt, I’m afraid one of the vicissitudes common to this country has deferred supper for a little. We can’t do better than sit out here, so long.”
There were cosy cane chairs upon the stoep, and as we sat chatting I said —
“Who is Kuliso?”
Brian laughed.
“One of the chiefs of the Ndhlambe location just east of us. A bad egg personally, and his clan is made up of ‘prize’ thieves and stock-lifters.”
“But you, Miss Matterson,” I went on. “Is it safe for you to go about alone among such neighbours?”
A glance of understanding, humorous withal, passed between brother and sister.
“Beryl is just about a dead shot, Holt,” said the former quietly.
“But even then, what can one do against a number, and that one a – ”
“A woman, you were going to say, Mr Holt,” supplied that equable, resolute voice, that had already begun to charm me.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Brian. “Are you afraid to throw up your hat in the air, Holt, now, just as we sit? But never mind. It wouldn’t be fair to spoil that new ‘smasher’ of yours. Mine’s a very old one. Look now.”
While he had spoken Beryl had disappeared within the house for a moment. Now she stood there holding a revolver – no toy, mind, but a real effective and business-like six-shooter. Up went Brian’s hat, whirling in mid-air. Just as it rested stationary for a fraction of a second at its highest flight, there was a sharp report; the hat gave a spasmodic jerk, like a live thing, and began to fall. But before it touched ground there was another report. Struck again, it gave a leap, and went skimming away to the ground in sidelong flight.
“Magnificent, by Jove!” broke from me. But that she had lowered the still smoking weapon, Beryl had not moved. Brian, however, had sprung from his seat to retrieve his hat.
“Call that nothing, Holt?” he cried, pointing out two clean bullet holes – one through the brim, the other through the crown. “Good thing it wasn’t yours, eh?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Brian, it’s too bad of you, to make me show off in that way,” said Beryl. “I can’t think why I did it. Now I must go and see to things inside, or you two poor hungry creatures will get nothing to eat to-night.”
She disappeared, and as the playful, chiding tone, the merrily deprecatory glance remained in my mind, I realised a strange impression. It seemed that all in a moment she had thrown aside that outer crust of reserve which she had worn for my benefit, and underneath I descried the real Beryl Matterson. And into a very sweet and alluring personality did my mental gaze seem to penetrate.
“Bushbuck chops, Holt,” said Brian, as we sat down to supper, in the snug, well-lighted dining-room, which in the comfort and refinement of its appointments bore token of the hand of a presiding genius – to wit, Beryl. “Rather out of season, buck, just now; still, we shoot one now and then, if only as a change from the eternal sheep. Try them. New kind of grub for you, eh?”
I did try them, and found them perfect, as indeed everything on the table was, and this was a farm on the average scale. I have since been at many a similar place run on a large scale where the appointments were slovenly in comparison. But then such did not own Beryl Matterson as a presiding goddess. Afterwards we adjourned to the stoep.
“Beryl will join us directly, Holt,” said Brian, as we lit our pipes. “She has to see to things a bit first. Girls over here have to do that, you know. I can tell you we should come off badly if they didn’t.”
Later on, when I got to my room at the end of the stoep, and turned in between snowy sheets, I appreciated what some of the aforesaid “seeing to things” on Beryl’s part involved.
“I expect the governor and George’ll sleep at Trask’s to-night, and turn up first thing in the morning,” declared Brian as it waxed late. And Beryl, who had long since joined us, concurred.
It was wholly delightful as we sat there chatting, in the soft night air – the range of hills opposite silvered and beautiful in the moonlight, and ever and anon the strange cry of bird or beast floating through the stillness, or the wailing whistle of plover circling above – and to me the experience was as strange as it was delightful. A day or two ago, I had felt lonely and forlorn indeed – a stranger in a strange land. Yet now here I was, in the most congenial surroundings beneath a hospitable roof whose inmates looked upon me as one of themselves and had made me thoroughly at home accordingly. And the fact that one of the said inmates was an unusually attractive girl did not, you may be sure, under the circumstances tend to lessen the feeling of thorough and comfortable enjoyment to which the situation caused me to give myself up. At last Brian began to yawn.
“Holt, old chap, you must excuse me,” he said. “We turn out early here and have to turn in tolerably ditto.”
I professed myself quite in accord with the idea. The fact was I felt just a little tired myself.
“So? Well, then, we’ll have a glass of grog and turn in.”
If I have dwelt upon the incidents of that first evening, I suppose it is because upon such one’s first and most vivid impressions are invariably based.
Chapter Eight.
A New Life
I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own the persistency wherewith my dreams were haunted by visions of my hostess. But now the sun was already up, and as I shouted “Come in,” the opening door admitted a broad dazzling flash of his new-born radiance together with the form of a small Kafir girl bearing a cup of coffee. Sounds,