Part 39

"Come in," she answered, and held white, wet fingers out to him. He touched them with a puzzled smile.

"Am I to----? Ah, I remember!"

Their eyes met, and the golden radiance in hers passed into his blood. He bared his high, fair head as she made the sign of the Cross, and followed her in and up the nave as Father Wix, in purple Lenten stole over the snowy cotta starched and ironed by Sister Tobias's capable hands, began to intone the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. The Sisters were already in their places--a double row of black-draped figures, the Mother at the end of the first row, Lady Hannah in the chair beside her, where Lynette had always sat until now. It was not without a pang that the one saw her place usurped by a stranger; it was piercing pain to the other to feel the strange presence at her side. But something had already come between these two, dividing them. Something invisible, impalpable as air, but nevertheless thrusting them apart with a force that might not be resisted.

Only the elder of the two as yet knew clearly what it meant. The younger was too dizzy with her first heady draught from the cup of joy, held to her lips by the strong, beautifully-shaped brown hand that rested on Beauvayse's knee as he sat, or propped up Beauvayse's chin as he knelt, stiff as a young crusader on a monument, beside her. But the Mother knew. Would not the God Who had been justly offended in her, His vowed servant, that day, exact to the last tittle the penalty? She knew He would.

Rosary ended, the thin, kind-eyed little elderly priest preached, taking for the text of his discourse the Introit from the Office of Quinquagesima.

"_Esto mihi in Deum protectorum, et in locum refugii, ut salvum me facias._"

"Be Thou unto me a God, a protector, and a place of refuge, to save me: for Thou art my strength...."

Then the _O Salutaris_ was sung, and followed by the Litany of the Holy Name.

The church was crowded. A Catholic congregation is always devout, but these people, well-dressed or ill-dressed, prosperous or poor, pale-faced and hollow-eyed every one, joined in the office with passion. The responses came like the beating of one wave of human anguish upon the Rock of Ages.

"_Have mercy on us!_"

Hungry, they cried to One Who had hungered. Sinking with weariness, they appealed to One Who had known labours, faintings, agonies, and desolations.

"_Have mercy on us!_"

He had drunk of Death for them, had been buried and had risen again.

Death was all about them. They could hear the beating of his wings, could see the red sweep of his blood-wet, dripping scythe. And they prayed as they had never prayed before these things befell:

"_Have mercy on us!_"

They sang the _Tantum Ergo_, and the cloud of incense rose from the censer in the priest's hand. Then, at the thin, sweet tinkle of the bell, and the first white gleam of the Unspeakable Mystery upheld by the servant of the Altar, the heads bowed and sank as when a sudden wind sweeps over a field of ripened corn. Only one or two remained unmoved, one of these a man's head, young and crisply-waved, and golden....

And then came the orderly crowding to the door, and they were outside under the great violet sky, throbbing with splendid stars, breathing the tainted air that came from the laagers and the trenches. But oh, was there ever a sweeter night, following upon a sweeter day?

Beauvayse's hand found and pressed Lynette's. She looked up and saw his eyes shining in the starlight. He looked down and saw the Convent lily transformed into a very rose of womanhood.

"I am on duty at Staff Bombproof South to-night. What I would give to be free to walk home with you!"

Lady Hannah's jangling laugh came in.

"Haven't you had the whole day? Greedy, unconscionable young man! Say good-night to her, and be off and get some food into you. Don't say you haven't any appetite. I am hungry enough to be interested even in minced mule and spatch-cocked locusts, after all this. Good-night! I must kiss you again, child! I hope you don't mind?"

Lynette gave her cheek, asking:

"Where is the Mother?"

The voice of Sister Tobias answered out of the purplish darkness:

"She has gone on with Sister Hilda-Antony and Sister Cleophee, dearie. She is going to sleep at the Convent with them, and I was to give you her love, and say good-night."

Say good-night! On this of all nights was Lynette to be dismissed without even the Mother's kiss? She gave back Beauvayse's parting hand-pressure almost mechanically. Then she heard his voice, close at her ear, say pantingly:

"No one will see.... Please, dearest!"

She turned her head, and their lips met under cover of the pansy-coloured darkness.... Then he was gone with Lady Hannah, and Lynette was walking home to the Convent bombproof, explaining to the astonished Sisters that the Mother knew; that the Mother approved of her engagement to Lord Beauvayse; and that they would probably be married very soon. Before the Relief ...

"'Before the Relief.' Well, no one but Our Lord knows when that's to be.... And so you're very happy, are you, dearie?"

Even as she gave her shy assent in answer to Sister Tobias's question, its commonplace homeliness, like the feeling of the thick dust and the scattered debris underfoot, brought back Lynette for a moment out of the golden, diamond-dusted, pearl-gemmed dream-world in which she had been straying, to wonder, Was she really very happy?

She asked herself the question sitting with the Sisters at their little scanty supper. She asked herself as she knelt with them in prayer, as she lay in bed, the Mother's place vacant beside her--Was she happy after all?

She had drunk sweetness, but there had been a tang of something in the cup that cloyed the palate and sickened the soul. She had learned the love of man, and in a measure it had cast out fear, that had been her earlier lesson.

To be held and taken and made his completely, what must it be like? She glowed in the darkness at the thought. And then the recollection of a ruthless strength that had rent away the veil of innocence from a woman-child surged back upon her.

Just think. Suppose you laid your hand in the warm, strong clasp that thrilled delight to every nerve, and set your heart beating, beating, and, drawn by the shining grey-green jewel-eyes and the mysterious, wooing smile upon the beautiful lips, and the coaxing, caressing tones of the voice that so allured, you gave up all else that had been so dear, and went away with him? What then? Suppose----

Suppose the smiling face of Love should turn out to be nothing but a mask hiding the gross and brutal leer of Lust, what then? She saw that other man's dreadful face, painted in hot and living colours upon the darkness. She writhed as if to tear her lips from the savage, furious mouth. She shuddered and grew cold there in the sultry heat. The clasp of the protecting mother-arms might have driven away her terror, but she was alone. It would have been sweet to be alone that night if she had been happy.

Why had the Mother shunned her? She knew that she had. Why had she felt, even with the glamour of _his_ presence about her, and the music of his voice in her ears, that all was not well?

Why, even with the lifting of her burden, in the unutterable relief of hearing, from the lips that had been her law, that her dreadful secret need never be revealed, had she felt consternation and alarm? The words were written in fiery letters, on the murky dark of the bombproof, where the tiny lamp that had hung before the Tabernacle on the altar of the Convent chapel now burned, a twinkling red star, before the silver Crucifix that hung upon the east wall.

"He is not to be told. I command you never to tell him!"

The doubt germinated and presently pushed through a little spear. Had those lips given right counsel or wrong? Ought he to be told? Was it dishonest, was it traitorous, to hide the truth? And yet, what are the lives of even the upright, and clean, and continent among men, compared with the life of a girl bred as she had been? The sin had not been hers. She, the victim, was blameless. And yet, and yet ...

To this girl, who had learned to see the Face of Christ and of His Mother reflected in one human face that had smiled down upon her, waking in the little white bed in the Convent infirmary from the long, recuperating sleep that turns the tide of brain-fever, the thought that a shadow of deceit could mar its earnest, candid purity was torture. Months back they had said to her--the lips that had given her the first kiss she had received since a dying woman's cold mouth touched the sleeping face of a yellow-haired baby held to her in a strong man's shaking hands, as the trek-waggon rolled and rumbled over the veld:

"The man who may one day be your husband will have the right to know."

It was a different voice to the one that had commanded, "You are never to tell him!" Lynette lay listening to those two voices until the alarm-clock belled and the Sisters rose at midnight for matins. Then she lay listening to the soft murmur of voices in the dark, as the red lamp glimmered before the silver Christ upon the wall. The nuns needed no light, knowing the office by heart:

"_Delicta quis intelligit? ab occultis meis munda me, et ab alienis parce servo tuo_"--"Who can comprehend what sin is? Cleanse me from my hidden sins, and from those of others save Thy servant."

The antiphon followed the _Gloria_, and then the soft womanly voices chanted the twenty-third Psalm:

"_Quis ascendit in montem Domini?_"--"Who shall ascend to the Mount of the Lord, and who shall dwell in His holy Sanctuary? Those who do no ill and are pure.... Who do not give their heart to vain desires, or deceive their neighbour with false oaths."

Or deceive ... with false oaths. To marry a man, letting him think you ... something you were not ... did not that amount to deceiving by a false oath?

Lynette lay very still. The last "Hail, Mary!" over, the Sisters returned silently to bed. Wire mattresses creaked under superimposed weight. Long breaths of wakefulness changed into the even breathing of slumber. The only one who snored was Sister Tobias, a confirmed nasal soloist, whose customary cornet-solo was strangely missing. Was Sister Tobias lying awake and remembering too?

Sister Tobias was the only other person in the Convent besides the Mother, who knew. She had helped her faithfully and tenderly to nurse Lynette through the long illness that had followed the finding of that lost lamb upon the veld. She was a homely creature of saintly virtues, the Mother's staff and right hand. And it was she who had asked Lynette if she was happy?

Somebody was moving. The grey light of dawn was filtering down the drain-pipe ventilators and through the chinks in the tarpaulins overhead. A formless pale figure came swiftly to Lynette's bedside. She guessed who it must be. She sat up wide awake, and with her heart beating wildly in her throat.

"Dearie!" The whisper was Sister Tobias's. She could make out the glimmer of the white, plain nightcap framing the narrow face with the long, sagacious nose and wise, kindly, patient eyes. "Are you awake, dearie?"

"Yes," Lynette whispered back, shuddering. The dry, warm, hard hand felt about for her cold one, and found and took it. Lips came close to her ear, and breathed:

"Dearie, this grand young gentleman you're engaged to be married to ..."

"Yes?"

"_Has he been told? Does he know?_"

The long, plain face was close to Lynette's. In the greying light she could see it clearly. Her heart beat in heavy, sickening thuds. Her teeth chattered, and whole body shook as if with ague, as she faltered:

"The Mother says--he is not to be told."

There was a dead silence. It was as if an iron shutter had suddenly been pulled down and clamped home between them. Then Sister Tobias said in a tone devoid of all expression:

"The Mother knows best, dearie, of course. Lie down and go to sleep."

Then silence settled back upon the Convent bombproof, but sleep did not come to everybody there.

XLIII

The Mother was kneeling, as she had knelt the whole night through, before the dismantled altar in the battered little chapel of the Convent, with the big white stars looking down upon her through the gaps in the shell-torn roof. When it was the matin-hour she rose and rang the bell. Matins over, she still knelt on. When it was broad day she broke her fast with the Sisters, and went about the business of the day calmly, collectedly, capably as ever. Only her face was white and drawn, and great violet circles were about her great tragical grey eyes.

"The blessed Saint she is!" whispered the nuns one to the other.

If she had heard them, it would have added yet another iron point to the merciless scourge of her self-scorn.

A Saint, in that stained garment! What tears of bitterness had fallen that night upon the shameful blots that marred its whiteness! But for Richard's child, even though she herself should become a castaway, she must go on to the end. All the chivalry in her rose in arms to defend the young, shame-burdened, blameless head.

Ah! if she had known?...

Cold, light, cruel eyes had watched from across the river that day as her tall, imposing figure, side by side with the slender, more lightly-clad one, moved between the mimosa-bushes and round the river-bend. When the two were fairly out of sight, the jungle of tree-fern and cactus had rustled and cracked. Then the burly, thickset, powerful figure of a bearded man pushed through, traversed the reed-beds, and, leaping from boulder to boulder, crossed the river. Before long the man was standing on the patch of trodden grass and flowers in the lee of the great boulder, shutting up a little single-barrelled, brass-mounted field-glass that had served him excellently well.

He was Bough, _alias_ Van Busch, otherwise the man who had come in through the enemy's lines as a runner from Diamond Town, bringing the letter from a hypothetical Mrs. Casey to a Mr. Casey who did not exist. His light eyes, that were set flat in their shallow orbits like an adder's, looked about and all around the place, as he stroked the dense brake of black-brown beard that cleverly filled in the interval between Mr. Van Busch's luxuriant whiskers. Presently he stooped and picked up a little tan-leather glove, lying in a tuft of pink flowers. The daintiness of the little glove brought home to Bough more forcibly than anything else, that the Kid had become a lady.

For it was the girl, sure. No error about that little white face of hers, with the pointed chin, and the topaz-coloured eyes, and the reddish hair. The glass had brought her near enough to make that quite certain. He had been too far off to hear a word, but he had made out what had been going on very well. First, she had been giddying with the tall young English swell, drawing him on while he seemed courting her, as all women knew how to, and then the tall Sister of Mercy had come and rowed her; and she had cried, thrown down there among the grass and flowers, exactly as if somebody had beaten her with a sjambok to cure her of the G. D.'d obstinacy that had to be thrashed out of women, if you would have them get to heel when you chose it, or come at your call when you chose again.

Suppose he chose again. When a man with brains in his holy head once set them to work, there were few things he could not do. He could scare others off his property, for certain. He could exercise upon the girl herself the unlimited power of Fear. He must lie doggo because of the Doctor. It was a thundering queer chance the Doctor turning up in this place. And as one of the bosses, helping to run the show, and powerful enough to pay off old scores, if he should chance to recognise in the densely bearded face of the man from Diamond Town the features of the Principal Witness in the once-famous Old Bailey Criminal Case: "The Crown _v._ Saxham."

Bough would lie low, and watch, and wait, and then spring, as the tarantula springs. He had cleverly blurred all trails leading back to the tavern on the veld, and he knew enough of girls and women to believe that this girl had kept secret what had happened there. He would pick up with her, anyway, and offer to marry her and make an honest girl of her. If she had a snivelling fancy for the dandy swell who had made love to her and kissed her, he would threaten to tell the fellow the truth unless she gave him up. Or he would blow on her to the nuns she lived with, and they would have nothing more to do with her.

Voor den donder! suppose they knew already? The plan wanted careful working out. A false step, and Gueldersdorp might become unhealthy for the man who had brought the letter from Diamond Town to oblige Mrs. Casey.

Suppose the spoor that led back to the tavern on the veld and the grave by the Little Kopje, not as well hidden as Bough had thought, those jewels and securities and the one thousand seven hundred pounds cash might get an honest man into trouble yet, even after the lapse of seventeen years. He breathed heavily, and the pupils of his strange light eyes dilated, and the sweat rolled off his forehead and cheeks until the skin shone like copper. He had been a reckless, easy-going young chap of twenty-six seventeen years ago. Forty-three years of life had taught him that when you are least expecting them to, buried secrets are sure to resurrect. No, Gueldersdorp was not a healthy place for Bough or for Van Busch! That chattering little paroquet of a woman with the sharp black eyes might use them one day, to the detriment of the philanthropist who had brought in the letter from Diamond Town for Mrs. Casey.

Then the girl!... He grinned in his bushy beard, thinking how thundering scared she would look if she encountered him by chance, and recognised him. The beard would not hide him from her eyes. No, no! And he smelled at the little tan glove, that had a slight, clean, delicate perfume about it, and thrust it into his breeches-pocket, and crossed the river again, making his way back to the native town by devious native paths that snaked and twined and twisted through the tangled bush, as he himself made his tortuous progress through the world.

He was in an evil mood, made blacker by the prospect of spending a lonely night without the solace of liquor or woman. For Vice was at a low ebb in Gueldersdorp just now, and the commonest dop was barely obtainable at the price of good champagne, and it would not do for the man from Diamond Town to seem flush of dollars.

Sure, no, that would never do! He must make out with the tobacco he still had left, and the big lump of opium he carried in a tin box in a pocket of the heavy money-belt he wore under his miner's flannel shirt. He groped for the tin box, and got it, and bit off a corner of the sticky brown lump, and ate it as he went along, and his laboured breathing calmed, and the chilly sweat dried upon his copper-burned skin, that had the purplish-black tinge in it that comes of saturation with iodide of potassium. And the pupils of his colourless eyes dwindled to pin-points, and his thick hands ceased to shake. He was not the man he had been; and he had learned the opium-habit from a woman who had managed a joint at Johannesburg, and it grew upon him--the need of the soothing, supporting deadener. He went along now, under the influence of it, scarcely feeling the ground under his heavy leather veldschoens.

He trod on something presently, lying on the path. It moved and whimpered. He struck a match with a steady hand, and held the glimmering blue phosphorus-flame downwards, and saw a Kaffir girl, a servant of the Barala, who had crept out with a bow strung with twisted crocodile-gut and a sheaf of reed arrows, to try and shoot birds. The Barala, though they were sorely pinched, like their European fellow-men, did not starve. They earned pay and rations. They helped to keep the enemy out on the south and west sides of the town, and dug most of the trenches--often under fire--and ran the despatches, and sometimes brought in fresh meat. But their slaves, and the native hangers-on at the kraals, suffered horribly. They ate the dogs that had been shot, and the other kind of dog, and fought with the live ones for bones, and picked up empty meat-tins and licked them. They stalked about the town and the native stad like living skeletons. They dropped and died on the dust-heaps they had been rummaging for offal. Soup-kitchens were started later on, when it was found how things were going with them, and hides and bones and heads of horses and mules were boiled down into soup, and they were fed. But a time was to come when even that soup was wanted to keep the life in white people. You saw the famine-stricken black spectres crawling from refuse-pile to refuse-pile, and dying in that pitiless, beautiful sunshine, under the blue, blue February sky, because white people had got to keep on living.

The native girl had been too weak to kill anything. Death had come upon her in the midst of the teeming life of the jungle, and she had fallen down there in her ragged red blanket among the tree-roots that arched and knotted over the path. Her eyes were already rolled up and set. They stared blindly, horribly, out of the ashen-black face. When she heard the steps of a shod person the last spark of life glimmered feebly up in her. Her wild, keen, savage power of scent yet remained. She smelled a white man, and her cracked and swollen lips moved, and a voice like the sound made by the rubbing of dry canes together uttered the word that is the same in Dutch and English:

"Water!"