There were other hours when battles of a different kind were to be faced, not with myself but Maurice. Thrusting himself violently into my hut he would revoke all promises and trample compacts under foot, making demands of me that seemed to fill and darken the room with shame: transforming me into a pillar of ice that could utter no word but one--a word that fell like a little cold icicle into s.p.a.ce, re-forming again upon my benumbed lips to fall and fall again. "No--no--no--no--no--no."

There was such a night that ended at dawn with an unspeakable struggle-- scorching kisses on my bare shoulders, and a blow across his lips that left blood upon my clenched fist.

Ah! those were dark days! Desperate, soul-deforming nights!

There was another night when after bitter taunts had been hurled like poisoned arrows round the room, he tore the bed-clothes and pillows from my bed and the gowns and hangings from the walls and flung them in heaps and tatters into the rain-sodden yard. When the boys came in the morning to their work they picked everything up, cleaned and dried them as best they could, and with calm, inscrutable faces replaced them in my room.

After such incidents came intervals of days and weeks in which we never opened lips to each other. I moved about his house like a ghost, pa.s.sing from hut to hut, arranging his meals, ordering his household, but speaking him no word, or if I did getting none in return. When we rode together, because it had become a set habit to mount our horses at a certain hour every afternoon, we never addressed each other except in the presence of other people who might chance to join us in our ride.

One day when we sat at table and I crossed myself for grace, as I had always been accustomed to do, he found a new jibe to throw at me.

"It makes me sick to see you sitting there tapping at yourself like an Irish peasant!"

Swiftly I found words to requite him for this new outrage. Until then he had at least left my faith untainted by his touch.

"Oh, Maurice!" I said. "If you were only an Irish peasant I would wash your feet and dry them with my hair."

I spoke very softly, but my words brought two little streaks of red into his cheeks, as though I had flicked them there with a whip. G.o.d forgive me, I had developed a cruel tongue; I was no Angel in the house: only a sorely driven woman. And it was true that I would have poured out gifts at his feet if he had only been an Irish peasant with any of the n.o.bility of some of the natures that come to birth in that sad land of beauty. If only he had possessed some of the lovely Irish traits that draw love as the sun draws the dew--generosity, a few ideals, a sweet thing or two about his heart, a little room in it for dreams and beauty!

If even his sins had been _big_ sins I should have felt some hope. Had everything he did been of the same calibre as his coming to table in his dirty flannels, offensive and discourteous as that action was, I could have forgiven much. There is hope for the boldly offensive man who does not care a b.u.t.ton whose feelings he hurts, or who sees his sins. Such men usually have the force of character to do big, bold, fine things also to offset their offences, and such men never fail to bring women to their banner; for women, above all things, love in a man the quality of _bigness_.

But a man who lies and is a coward! who drinks whiskey in his room, and afterwards eats cloves! who pats animals in public, and viciously kicks them in private! whose wretched puling sins are afraid to stand on their own legs and a.s.sert themselves as sins--hiding behind doors, skulking in the darkness!

Oh! there were days when, as we rode together over the short golden gra.s.s, I wished my horse would throw me and break my neck--and did not pray at night for forgiveness for that sinful wish. In the terrible season of drought that had fallen, the source of prayer was beginning to dry up and fail.

In a letter from Judy, which came from Australia this pa.s.sage occurred:

"I hear that the _pet.i.t sobriquet_ Rhodesians have for you since you went to Mgatweli is 'Ghostie' Stair. They tell me you are as gay and witty as ever, and seem to be extremely happy in your marriage, but have become as white and spectral as a ghost. Doesn't the place agree with you? d.i.c.kie is flourishing, and I have got a splendid German governess for him. John is a perfect Pet."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

WHAT A VULTURE TOLD.

"As I came thro' the Desert thus it was-- As I came thro' the Desert."

For a reason that had to do with my intense love for animals I had steadfastly refused to have any pets, though I had been offered an adorable Irish terrier puppy, a tame _meerkat_ and a baby monkey.

But one day, Major Ringe, the magistrate, a big, fair man of forty with innocent eyes, lank limbs, and a reputation in the Gunners for valour second to none, brought me a pretty little white kitten that I could not resist.

It had china-blue eyes and other traces of Persian ancestry, but its chief charm was its lovely fluffy playfulness, and soft s...o...b..lliness.

It seemed to me I had never had anything so sweet and wonderful in my life since the day Anthony Kinsella left me. It was like a little blue and white cloud dropped from the skies: it brought back dreams.

We called it Snowie, and from the first Maurice seemed as fond of it as I, and insisted that Major Ringe had meant it for him also. I was only too willing to share it with him if he really cared, but I was always a little nervous for fear that in some sudden gust of rage he might give the little trustful thing a bang. But at other times, when I saw him fondling it with real tenderness in his eyes, I reproached myself, and a piercing thought darted into my mind.

What if I am ginning against him? What if in my selfishness and pride I am wickedly unjust to him? Perhaps if he had a child to love--he would be different!

Yet when I thought of a child of mine--with Maurice's eyes and Maurice's ways--I turned sick and faint, and I flung the thought out. But it came back and back, roosting in my mind, pecking at my heart like a little black vulture.

I let him have the kitten to himself when he wanted it, and he would take it away to his room. We got into the way of keeping it in turn to spend the night with us. But it always preferred me. It would escape from him whenever it could and come scampering back across the yard to me; and he following it in a rage, would grab it up roughly, accusing me of feeding it in the night to make it like me best!

The nights I had Snowie I slept well, dreaming I had a child with Anthony Kinsella's blue eyes, nestling at my heart. I often woke crooning to it as my old Irish nurse used to croon to me:

"_Hush-a, Hush-a, Hush-a, m'babee_."

But on the nights that I had no kitten to nestle against my throat, the little black vulture kept me company, staying with me unweariedly, plucking at my heart, asking little terrible questions to which I had no answer.

"_Do you think Maurice Stair also croons over dream children?--does he give them the eyes of his love?--have they little hands that fondle him_?"

"_You have tried beguiling, and flattering, and scorn, and hate--is there nothing else left to try_?"

"_Is a man's soul nothing?--what of the little smouldering spark down below, under the mud and weights--is it still there?--or have you put it out_?"

"_Who are you to keep yourself so aloof and proud?--do you think women have not sacrificed themselves before to-day--better, n.o.bler women than you_?"

"Yes--but for love--for love--for love!" I cried, and wept till dawn.

One night it was raining terribly when Maurice got up to leave the drawing-room and go across to his hut. Lightning was streaking between the trees, and great crashes of thunder seemed to fall bodily from the skies and explode like tons of dynamite amongst the kopjes, echoing and detonating through the land.

It was Maurice's night for the kitten, but she didn't want to go. She tried hard to get away to me, but he tucked her into the pocket of his mackintosh, and only the top of her little fluffy face was to be seen gazing at me with appealing blue eyes.

"Let her stay for a little while, Maurice," I said, "just till the storm goes off a little. I'll bring her over to your door later. She's afraid of the storm."

"Nonsense: the storm won't hurt her. Get back into my pocket, you little devil."

But the little devil only mewed the louder, and tried the harder to escape, gazing at me imploringly. I turned away with my eyes full of tears. She was so like a child asking to be left with its mother. I knew, too, that I had a wretched night before me with a black companion.

I should have been glad of the little furry thing snuggling against me.

But it was Maurice's turn.

"Good-night!" I said abruptly. "I shall stay here till the storm goes down. I'm afraid of the lightning in the trees."

He said good-night, and went out into the storm, his mackintosh b.u.t.toned round him, lantern in hand. I stood watching in the door, and heard him stumbling against tree trunks and swearing, until he found his hut.

Then the door banged, and light gleamed through his canvas windows.

Presently when the lightning was not quite so vivid, I wrapped myself up, and locking the drawing-room door beat my way across the compound to my own hut. Though the journey was only a matter of a few seconds I was wet to the skin when I arrived, and hastily throwing off my clothes slipped into bed. As I put out my light I thought I heard Snowie mewing again. I was very tired, and, contrary to my expectation, fell asleep very quickly. Perhaps the vulture was tired out too.

I dreamed I saw Snowie backing away from the fangs of a wolf and crying piteously. I rushed to save her, but the wolf already had her, and was mauling the life out of her. Her screams were terrible--almost human!

They woke me up. With a wet forehead I sat up in bed, listening. But I could hear nothing; only bursts of thunder, the whip of the rain on the trees, and the swish and ripple of little streams tearing down the sides of the hill. The storm had increased.

After awhile I lay down again, but I could sleep no more. The cries had been so real they haunted me. I considered the matter of going over to Maurice to see if all was well with the kitten. I had never entered his hut, only looked in the door daily, to see that it was kept clean by his boy. What excuse had I to knock at his door in the middle of the night?

He would probably, and with every reason, be very indignant at being waked up. Nevertheless, I presently found myself on the floor groping for my slippers and feeling for my cloak.