Blue Aloes Part 40

"Only Kenna. The crowd doesn't belong to me. They've come to buy pictures or something, and are in your studio. I haven't seen them.

We are in the dining-room."

His speech was disjointed and halting, his amazed gaze fixed upon the girl standing thunderstruck at the foot of the steps. Clive forged on into the house with a gloomy eye; she hated to sell pictures, even when she needed the money. April and Sarle were left together, and in a moment he was down the step by her side. They stood looking at each other with the memory of their last kiss kindling between them. He had been bitterly hurt, but he loved and trusted her beyond all things that were, and could not conceal the happiness in his eyes. Only for the open studio windows and the round-eyed piccannins, he would have gathered her to his heart; as it was he gathered her hands instead and held them where they could feel its beating.

"Darling! Thank G.o.d I have found you."

Kenna had not betrayed her, then. The blow was still to fall. She managed to smile a little, but she had turned very pale, and there was something in her silence chilling even to his ardent spirit.

"You don't think I tracked you down? We motored out here with no idea but to see Clive Connal----"

"Of course not." She strove to speak casually. "I couldn't expect to have a friend like Clive all to myself, but I never dreamed you knew her."

"She has been my friend for twelve years or more."

"Yes," said Kenna's voice from the stoep, "we are all old friends together here."

He had come out with _belle_ Helene, and stood smiling upon them. The old malice was there, with some new element of strain that made him look more sardonic, yet strangely pathetic to the girl who feared him.

"Who'd have thought to find you here, Lady Di?" he sneered softly.

"Life is full of pleasant surprises!"

They all went into the dining-room, where tea was laid, and Clive brought in her picture-dealers, who proved to be two globe-trotters anxious to acquire specimens of South African art. Someone had told them that Clive Connal stood top of the tree amongst Cape painters, so they had spent about seven pounds ten on a car from Cape Town in the hope of getting some rare gem for a couple of guineas. One was a fat and pompous a.s.s, the other a withered monkey of a fellow who hopped about peering through his monocle at the pictures on the walls, uttering deprecating criticism in the hope of bringing down prices.

"This sketch of Victoria Falls is not bad," he piped, gazing at a thing of tender mists and spraying water above a t.i.tanic rock-bound gorge.

"The left foreground wants breaking up a bit, though!"

"I think you want breaking up a bit," muttered Clive, who had already made up her mind to sell him nothing, and looking longingly at her sjambok lying on the sideboard. "Where are Ghostie and the others?"

she demanded.

"They had tea by themselves in Ghostie's room." _Belle_ Helene proffered the statement rather hesitatingly, and no wonder, in a house where "_les amies de mes amis sont mes amies_" was the rule. It took more than that to offend Clive, but she looked astonished.

"Oh, all right, then, let's have ours," she said, and sitting at the head of her table held the loaf of home-made brown bread firmly to her breast, carving hefty slices and pa.s.sing them on the point of the knife to _belle_ Helene, who jammed them from a tin. Customs were simple and the fare frugal at Ho-la-le-la. There were only two teaspoons between six, as Ghostie had the other two in her bedroom. The jam unfortunately gave out before the globe-trotters got theirs, but there was some good dripping--if they had only happened to like dripping.

They seemed pained before the end of the meal, and one was heard to murmur to the other as they went out:

"Would you believe that her father was a clergyman? Bread and dripping! and jam scratched out of a tin! This comes of living in the wilds of Africa, I suppose. An entire loss of culture!"

The daughter of the clergyman must have surprised them a good deal by her unexpected spurt of holiness in refusing to sell pictures on a Sunday. They wound up their old taxi and went away very much annoyed at having come so far for nothing.

"Whose then is the Babylonian litter with trappings of scarlet and gold?" asked Clive, as the Ford rattled off. "You don't mean to say you fellows came in a thing like that?"

They denied it until seventy times seven. The grey torpedo was Sarle's. Kenna was of opinion that the owners of the crimson caravan must be Johannesburgers, and "dripping with it."

"Not Johannesburgers," disputed Clive, with a wry lip. "No; they're too exclusive for that."

Something must have gone very wrong indeed with the atmosphere for Clive to start sneering. In truth some jangling element unnatural to the sweet accord of Ho-la-le-la had been introduced, and did not leave with the strangers.

They settled down to smoke in the studio, but there was more smoke about than tranquillity. Sarle seemed distrait. _Belle_ Helene sometimes cast an uneasy glance at April, who, still very pale, sat by herself on the lounge. Only Clive and Kenna talked racily, but in jerks, of cattle, fruit-blight, mules, and white ants. But presently all subjects of conversation seemed to peter out, leaving a dark pool of silence to form between them in the room. Kenna it was who threw the stone disturbing those still waters.

"Has any one told you, Miss Connal, about the girl who committed suicide on the _Clarendon Castle_?"

For a full moment not a word was spoken. Sarle, staring, made a movement with his hand over his mat of hair. April's lids fell over her eyes as though afflicted by a deadly weariness. Clive changed her cigarette from one corner of her mouth to the other before answering briefly:

"Yes; I know all about it." Which seemed to astonish Kenna.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I wish I did!"

It was Sarle's turn to look astonished.

"Why, Kenna, I told you everything there was to know. Besides, it was in the papers."

"No, Kerry. You told me something . . . and the papers told me something. _Everything_ can only be related by one person."

Dramatically he fixed his glance upon that person. There was no mistaking the challenge. April found courage to return his glance, but her eyes looked like the eyes of a drowning girl. At the sight of them two people were moved to action. _Belle_ Helene rose and slipped from the room. Sarle also rose, but it was to seat himself again by April's side on the lounge.

"I don't understand what all this is about," he said quietly, "but it seems a good time for you to know, Kenna, and you, Clive, that we"--he took April's hand in his--"are engaged, and going to be married as soon as possible."

Kenna looked at him with pity and tenderness.

"You had better let her speak, old man. It is time you were undeceived."

"Be careful, Kenna."

"My dear Kerry, do you suppose that it gives me any pleasure to cause you pain, or to distress this charming lady? Only my friends.h.i.+p for you----"

"I can dispense with it," Sarle curtly interrupted.

"Ah! That's the way when a woman steps in." Kenna's lips twisted in a bitter grin. Sarle turned to April.

"Diana . . ."

"That is the very crux of the matter," rapped out, Kenna. "_She is not_ Diana."

"What in G.o.d's name----?" began Sarle.

"What I want to know," pursued Kenna sombrely, "is--why, if Diana Vernilands jumped overboard, does this girl go masquerading under her t.i.tle?"

"Are you mad?" Sarle stared from one to the other. "Haven't you known her all your life? Did you not meet as old friends?"

Kenna shrugged. "I never set eyes on her until that day at the 'Mount Nelson.' She was a friend of yours and chose to call herself by the name of a friend of mine, and . . . I humoured her . . . and you. But the thing has gone too far. After inquiries among other pa.s.sengers I have realized the truth--that it was Diana who . . ." A spasm of pain flickered across his melancholy eyes. Sarle, in grave wonder and hurt, turned to April.

"It is true," she cried bitterly, pierced to the heart by his look.

"Diana is drowned. I am a masquerader." Even if she had been nothing to him he could not have remained unmoved by the desperate pleading of her eyes. But he happened to love her with the love that casts out fear, and distrust, and all misunderstanding.

"I am the real April Poole," she said, broken, but resolute that at least there should be no further mistake. He gave her one long look, then lifted her hand, and held it closer. The gesture was for all the world to see. But Kenna had not finished with her.

"You will allow a natural curiosity in me to demand why you should wear the name and retain the possessions of my friend Lady Diana Vernilands?" he asked, dangerously suave.

Then Clive sprang full-armed to the fray.