Part 15 (1/2)
On came the cart and the knot of men, then suddenly John looked up and saw her gazing at him with those dark eyes that at times did indeed seem as though they were the windows of her soul. He turned and said something to his companions and to the Zulu Mouti, who went on with the cart, then he came towards her smiling and with outstretched hand.
”How do you do, Jess?” he said. ”So I have found you all right?”
She took his hand and answered, almost angrily, ”Why have you come? Why did you leave Bessie and my uncle?”
”I came because I was sent, also because I wished it. I wanted to bring you back home before Pretoria was besieged.”
”You must have been mad! How could you expect to get back? We shall both be shut up here together now.”
”So it appears. Well, things might be worse,” he added cheerfully.
”I do not think that anything could be worse,” she answered with a stamp of her foot, then, quite thrown off her balance, she burst incontinently into a flood of tears.
John Niel was a very simple-minded man, and it never struck him to attribute her grief to any other cause than anxiety at the state of affairs and at her incarceration for an indefinite period in a besieged town that ran the daily risk of being taken _vi et armis_. Still he was a little hurt at the manner of his reception after his long and most perilous journey, which is not, perhaps, to be wondered at.
”Well, Jess,” he said, ”I think that you might speak a little more kindly to me, considering--considering all things. There, don't cry, they are all right at Mooifontein, and I dare say that we shall win back there somehow some time or other. I had a nice business to get here at all, I can tell you.”
Suddenly she stopped weeping and smiled, her tears pa.s.sing away like a summer storm. ”How did you get through?” she asked. ”Tell me all about it, Captain Niel,” and accordingly he did.
She listened in silence while he sketched the chief events of his journey, and when he had done she spoke in quite a changed tone.
”It is very good and kind of you to have risked your life like this for me. Only I wonder that you did not all of you see that it would be of no use. We shall both be shut up here together now, that is all, and that will be very sad for you and Bessie.”
”Oh! So you have heard of our engagement?” he said.
”Yes, I read Bessie's letter about a couple of hours ago, and I congratulate you both very much. I think that you will have the sweetest and loveliest wife in South Africa, Captain Niel; and I think that Bessie will have a husband any woman might be proud of;” and she half bowed and half curtseyed to him as she said it, with a graceful little air of dignity that was very taking.
”Thank you,” he answered simply; ”yes, I think I am a very lucky fellow.”
”And now,” she said, ”we had better go and see about the cart. You will have to find a stand for it in that wretched laager. You must be very tired and hungry.”
A few minutes' walk brought them to the cart, which Mouti had outspanned close to Mrs. Neville's waggon, where Jess and her friends were living, and the first person they saw was Mrs. Neville herself. She was a good, motherly colonial woman, accustomed to a rough life, and one not easily disturbed by emergencies.
”My goodness, Captain Niel!” she cried, as soon as Jess had introduced him. ”Well, you are plucky to have forced your way through all those horrid Boers! I am sure I wonder that they did not shoot you or beat you to death with _sjambocks_, the brutes. Not that there is much use in your coming, for you will never be able to take Jess back till Sir George Colley relieves us, and that can't be for two months, they say.
Well, there is one thing; Jess will be able to sleep in the cart now, and you can have one of the patrol-tents and camp alongside. It won't be quite proper, perhaps, but in these times we can't stop to consider propriety. There, there, you go off to the Governor. He will be glad enough to see you, I'll be bound; I saw him at the other end of the camp five minutes ago. We will have the cart unpacked and arrange about the horses.”
Thus adjured, John departed, and when he returned half an hour afterwards, having told his eventful tale, which did not, however, convey any information of general value, he was rejoiced to find that the process of ”getting things straight” was almost complete. What was better still, Jess had fried him a beefsteak over the camp fire, and was now employed in serving it on a little table by the waggon. He sat down on a stool and ate his meal heartily enough, while Jess waited on him and Mrs. Neville chattered incessantly.
”By the way,” she said, ”Jess tells me that you are going to marry her sister. Well, I wish you joy. A man wants a wife in this country. It isn't like England, where in five cases out of six he might as well go and cut his throat as get married. It saves him money here, and children are a blessing, as Nature meant them to be, and not a burden, as civilisation has made them. Lord, how my tongue does run on! It isn't delicate to talk about children when you have only been engaged a couple of weeks; but, you see, that's what it comes to after all. She's a pretty girl, Bessie, and a good one too--I don't know her much--though she hasn't got the brains of Jess here. That reminds me; as you are engaged to Bessie, of course you can look after Jess, and n.o.body will think anything of it. Ah! if you only knew what a place this is for talk, though their talk is pretty well scared out of them now, I'm thinking. My husband is coming round presently to the cart to help to get Jess's bed into it. Lucky it's big. We are such a tight fit in that waggon that I shall be downright glad to see the last of the dear girl; though, of course, you'll both come and take your meals with us.”
Jess heard all this in silence. She could not well insist upon stopping in the crowded waggon; it would be asking too much; and, besides, she had pa.s.sed one night there, and that was quite enough for her. Once she suggested that she should try to persuade the nuns to take her in at the convent, but Mrs. Neville suppressed the notion instantly.
”Nuns!” she said; ”nonsense. When your own brother-in-law--at least he will be your brother-in-law if the Boers don't make an end of us all--is here to take care of you, don't talk about going to a parcel of nuns. It will be as much as they can do to look after themselves, I'll be bound.”
As for John, he ate his steak and said nothing. The arrangement seemed a very proper one to him.
CHAPTER XVII
THE TWELFTH OF FEBRUARY