Aletta Part 24

"Rather, it did," confirmed Piet. "Oh, oh, oh! '_Is nie jou Oom nie.

Ik is die President_!' Oh, oh, oh! I shall choke directly."

And he very nearly did.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THAT OTHER KERSHAW.

Since that strange chance meeting on the platform at Park Station, life seemed much brighter for May Wenlock.

She had come up there in a fit of the dolefullest dumps, as she herself put it, and in fact those with whom she sojourned hardly recognised her for the blithe, light-hearted girl she had been the year before. They even tentatively rallied her, but she brusquely disclaimed any reason other than that she was utterly and entirely sick of the farm, that its eternal monotony got upon her nerves, and a very little more of it would have driven her crazy. Yet she might about as well have stayed where she was, for the erewhile great whirling gold town was now as a city of the dead. All who could do so had cleared out--tumbling over each other's heels in their eagerness to get away--as we have seen.

Of all the war-talk and excitement she was heartily sick. There was nothing to take her out of herself, no fun, no gaiety, no life; the streets, lines upon lines of abandoned houses and shuttered-up shops.

It was as a city ravaged by pestilence from end to end.

James Dixon, her relative's husband, was a broker, and had been a contractor. He had been regarded of late with somewhat of a suspicious eye--by his own countrymen that is--and dark hints were not wanting to the effect that he stood in too well with the Government, as against British interests. In what particular way he did so was never formulated, but it was sufficient in those days to hint. Anyway he remained on, serene and untroubled, what time others had fled. This, of course, to the minds of the hinters, confirmed every suspicion.

May had never been particularly fond of these people, although she had got on with them well enough. But then there had been plenty of outside life and diversion. Now that she was thrown upon them almost entirely, she wondered how she could ever have found Mary Dixon other than the tiresome woman she was--without an idea outside her brood, the four units composing which were always noisy and quarrelsome, never too clean, and generally and all-round ill behaved. She had come up to Johannesburg just before the crisis had reached a climax--and now, there she was and there she must stay.

Of course there was that beneath her _ennui_ and restlessness which she did not impart to her relatives. In her hours of solitude--and these were too many for one of her age and temperament and abundant attractions--there always arose in her mind a vivid recollection of what she had felt on hearing of Colvin Kershaw's engagement. It was not so entirely unexpected, for her jealous misgivings had been gnawing into and corroding her mind for some time past. Yet, when it came, the shock had been hardly the less acute. He had treated her shamefully--she declared to herself--yes, wickedly, cruelly, abominably. Why had he made her care for him, only to--do as he had done? If only she could make him suffer for it--but--how could she? Wild, revengeful plans scorched through her brain--among them that of revealing everything to Aletta. Then the ugly Dutch girl could have the reversion of his kisses and soft words. But the only consideration that kept her from this was a conviction that such a course would not weigh with Aletta, would defeat its own object, and turn herself into a laughing stock. It certainly would if Aletta loved him as she herself had done--and how could Aletta do otherwise? thought poor May to herself with a sob, and a filling of the eyes like a rain shower breaking upon a stormy sunset.

She hated him now, she told herself again and again. But--did she?

That sob would often repeat itself to give the lie to the illusion.

She had not seen him since hearing the--to her--baleful news; but this, to do him justice, was not his fault. He had come over to Spring Holt to bid them good-bye before leaving for the Transvaal, but she had not appeared--pleading a headache which was not all pretence--the fact being that she dared not trust herself. But of late an intense longing had been upon her to behold him once more, and when her glance had lighted upon him at the railway station among the crowd, she forgot everything in the joy of the moment. And--it was not he after all.

Even then somehow her disappointment was less keen than she could have thought possible. Could it be that the other was so exactly his counterpart that at times, even subsequent to their first acquaintance, she could hardly believe it was not Colvin himself, for some motive of his own, playing a part?

For their first acquaintance had grown and ripened. Kenneth Kershaw had lost no time in calling, in fact he had a slight acquaintance with Jim Dixon already, and as time went on his visits became more and more frequent till they were almost daily. Whereupon Jim Dixon began to rally his very attractive young kinswoman.

This, at first, annoyed the latter. He was not a refined man, and his jests were on his own level. More than once he fired them off on the object of them personally, and Kenneth had looked much as Colvin would have looked under the circ.u.mstances. Then May had affected to take them in good part, with an eye to information. Who was this Mr Kershaw, she asked, and what was he doing up there? But Jim Dixon's reply was vague.

He had been there some two years, he believed, but he must have been longer in the country, because he could talk Dutch quite well. What was his business? n.o.body knew. He was one of those customers who didn't give themselves away. Like a good many more up there he had got along sort of "scratch"; but it was said he had made a tidyish bit in the boom, end of last year. But he was a tip-top swell, any one could see that. "Nothing like capturing one of these English swells, May,"

concluded Jim, with a knowing wink. "Make hay while the sun s.h.i.+nes."

And we dare not swear that the aspirate in that fragrant foodstuff for the equine race was over distinctly sounded.

Kenneth, for his part, was genuinely attracted by the girl. Her relatives he at once set down in his own mind as unmitigated outsiders, but there was the making of something good about May herself. Times, too, were desperately dull. He hardly knew why he had elected to remain in the Transvaal, except on the principle of "sitting on the fence." It was by no means certain that Oom Paul would not remain c.o.c.k of the walk, in which eventuality he thought he saw the road to some valuable pickings. And now this girl had come into his way to brighten it. And she did brighten it.

She was so natural, so transparent. He could turn her mind inside out any moment he chose. He had very quickly, and with hardly a question, discovered the _raison d'etre_ of her partiality for himself, the pleasure she had seemed to take in being with him. She had talked about Colvin, then, when designedly, he had led the conversation to some other subject, she had always brought it back to Colvin, in a lingering wistful way that told its own tale over and over again. But this, too, had ceased, and she gradually talked less and less of Colvin, and seemed to listen with increased interest to Colvin's facsimile.

"There's where I score," said Kenneth to himself, "and I am going to work the circ.u.mstance for all it is worth."

This working of the circ.u.mstance was to be a means to an end, and that end was that he meant to marry May Wenlock.

Why did he? She was not quite of his cla.s.s. He had seen her surroundings, as represented immediately, at any rate, and they had revolted him. Well, he could raise her above her surroundings, besides the very fact of her coming of the stock she did was not without its advantages. She would be all the more fitted to bear her part in the adventure he was planning: would have no superfine scruples or misgivings as to accepting the splendid--the really dazzling destiny he had mapped out for her--to share with him. She, in a measure, had supplied the key to the opening of that golden possibility of the future, had brought it within really tangible reach, therefore she should share it. And this possibility, this adventure, was worth staking all for--even life itself. It needed boldness, judgment, utter unscrupulousness, and he possessed all three. It was vast--it was magnificent.

And then the beauty of the girl appealed powerfully to his physical nature. Those sea-blue velvety eyes, those waves of hair in rippling heavy gold, those full red lips, the smooth skin, a mixture of sun-kiss and the healthy flush of blood underneath, the firm rounded figure--that should all be his, he would think when alone with his own reflections in a perfect whirl of pa.s.sion, after one of those long interviews or walks with May that had now become so frequent, and to himself so amazingly sweet. Yet towards her he was ever careful to veil any indication of feeling. Colvin himself could hardly have been more utterly indifferent so far as all outward manifestations were concerned.

One day, however, he slipped. They had been out together and May had been more than ordinarily sweet and winning. It was dusk, and he was bidding her farewell within her temporary home. They had the house to themselves, moreover, save for the native boy in the kitchen. The others were out somewhere. It seemed to him that in the face looking up into his the lips were raised temptingly. His blood was in a whirl. In a moment she was in his embrace, and he kissed them full and pa.s.sionately.

He was hardly prepared for what followed. She wrenched herself from him with a sinuous strength for which he would scarcely have given her credit.

"Why did you do that?" she blazed forth, and he could see that her face grew white and quivering as she confronted him in the dusk. "Why did you? Heavens! are all men alike that they think a girl is only made to be their plaything? I hate them. Yes, I hate them all."

The fierce bitterness of her tone was so incisive, so genuine, that most men under the circ.u.mstances would have felt extremely foolish, and looked correspondingly abject. Into Kenneth Kershaw's very heart her words seemed to cut like so many whip lashes. By a mighty effort he restrained himself from pleading provocation, feeling, any mitigation whatever; which would have been the worst line he could possibly have taken. Instead he adopted a kind of quietly resigned tone, with just a touch of the dignified; apologetic, yet without a trace of abjectness-- which was the best.

"May, dear, forgive me," he said. "I was not thinking, I suppose. Have I offended you beyond recall? Well, I must pay the penalty; for of course you are going to tell me you never want to set eyes on me again."

He knew how to play his cards. Even then his words seemed to open a dreadful blank before her mind's eye. Not to set eyes on him again? He seemed to mean it, too. That air of sad self-composure with which he had spoken them disarmed her, and her anger melted.

"No, no, I don't mean that," she answered, slowly, in a dazed kind of manner. "But why did you do it? We were such friends before."

"And are we not to be again?" is the reply that would have arisen to most men's lips. But this one knew when to let well alone.

"Forget it, May," he said. "Believe me, I never wanted to offend you.

And don't think hard things of me when I am away, will you? Good-bye."

"No, no. But you had better go now. Good-bye."

Her tone was flurried, with an admixture of distress. It was just the time not to answer. He went out, and as he walked away from the house, he felt not ill-satisfied with himself and his doings in spite of his very decided repulse. As touching this last some men might have felt rather small. Not so this one. A subtle, unerring instinct told him that he had come out with all the honours of war.

"It is only the first step," he said to himself. "You were frightened at first, my darling, but the time will come, and that sooner than you think, when you shall kiss me back again, and that with all the sweet ardour and pa.s.sion wherewith I shall kiss you."

Then a very blank thought took hold upon his mind. What if all the sympathy he had created in her was reflex--if whatever feeling she had for him or would come to have was due solely to his complete likeness to that other? Why the mere sight of Colvin, a chance glimpse in some public place such as when they two had first met, might shatter his own carefully calculated chances. It was a horrid thought--that at any moment that unpalatable relative of his might appear and spoil everything.

Not everything, at any rate. The greater scheme, apart from the incidental one of love, would always remain untouched. Colvin, he had already discovered, was in Pretoria. So far he was within the toils, or at any rate within appreciable distance of so being.

"It will make the working out of it so much the easier," he said to himself. "Great G.o.d alive! why should Colvin have all the good things of earth? And the ungrateful dog isn't capable of appreciating them either. Well, well, thanks to this benevolent war, his luck is now on the turn, while mine--Oh, d.a.m.n!"

The last aloud. A big powerful native, armed with a heavy stick, swinging along the sidewalk at a run, utterly regardless of the bye-law which rendered him liable to the gaoler's lash for being on the sidewalk at all, had cannoned right against him. Quick as thought, and yielding to the natural ire of the moment, Kenneth shot out his right fist, landing the native well on the ear with a force that sent him staggering. Recovering his balance, however, the fellow turned and attacked him savagely. At the same time, two others who seemed to spring out of nowhere--also armed with sticks--came at him from the other side, uttering a ferocious hiss through the closed teeth.

Save for a walking-stick Kenneth was unarmed. In the existing state of affairs the road was utterly lonely, and the odds against him were three to one, three wiry desperate savages, armed with clubs, which they well understood how to use. Instinctively once more he let out, and landed another, this time between wind and water, doubling him up in the road, a squirming kicking shape. The remaining pair sprang back a step or two with k.n.o.bsticks raised, ready to rush him both at once, when--suddenly both took to their heels.

The cause of this welcome diversion took the form of a horseman. He was armed with rifle and revolver, and had a full bandolier of cartridges over his shoulder. As he stepped out to meet him, Kenneth could see he was young, and well-looking. His first words showed that he was a Dutchman.

"_Wie's jij_?" he asked, sharply, as his horse started, and backed from the approaching figure. Then peering down, and catching sight of the face, he cried, in would-be jovial tones:

"_Maagtig_, Colvin. You, is it? Ah, ah, I know where you have just come from. Ah, ah! You are _slim_!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

SOMETHING OF A PLOT.

Kenneth Kershaw narrowly scanned the face of this very opportune new arrival, and decided that he didn't know him from Adam. The other looked at him no less fixedly, and it was clear that he did not know him from Colvin.

Colvin, again? What the deuce was the game now? But he decided to play up to the _role_. He might get at something.