The Claw Part 19

"My chicks are fast asleep already, and now that we've got that curtain up don't you think it would be as well if we all went off to bed?"

"It will certainly leave the coast clear for the other women."

"Yes: that is what I mean."

"Oh, and Mrs Grant have you got those biscuits for your little Allie?"

"Everything belonging to us is in there, and I've brought my spirit-lamp to make tea in the morning. I expect we shall have to turn out early."

"At seven thirty Colonel Blow told me. Three of those tents are for the hospital sisters--they are coming into _laager_ too--but not until the last thing at night, and they're to go first thing in the morning; there will be a strong guard round the hospital all night."

As I listened to these gentle, simple souls how I wished it had been to their set I belonged instead of to the set that looked over their heads and called them frumps and dowds. With their families of young children round them most of them had parted with a husband whom she might never see again. Yet here they were with cheerful faces making their plans and fixing up their children to take up as small amount of room and be as little nuisance as possible. I realised that as Dr Jameson had said, these were the real pioneers and patriots. These were the people Mr Rhodes needed for his new bit of Empire!

As they were leaving the verandah one of them gave a glance down the yard and stopped.

"There's poor Mrs Marriott! I wonder if--couldn't we ask her to come in with us?"

They discussed the matter softly amongst themselves.

"I'm afraid she wouldn't, Mrs Burney. Poor thing, she is so frightfully sensitive--she might think we were pitying her."

"We'll chance that. I'll go and ask her--shall I?"

She went quickly to where Mrs Marriott was now sitting with her hands in her lap, on an unshapely roll of blankets.

"Mrs Marriott--do let me help you get your things in," she said. "And have you settled on a place yet? Won't you come in with Mrs Grant and Mrs Shannon and me? We're packed like sardines, with the children, but I'm sure we can make room for one sardine more--"

"Oh! no. No, thank you," stammered the other woman. "I prefer being alone. It doesn't matter where I am. I can manage without any one's help."

She had begun by being emotional and ended by being rude: but Mrs Burney did not take offence.

"Well, be sure and come to us if you find that you're not comfortable,"

she said cheerily as she hurried away.

A Dutch woman's husband presently appeared and helped to sort out the children and various utensils from the Dutch domestic heap. It became plain that they were to be bestowed _en bloc_ for the night in one of the prison cells. Whilst I was watching them make a _trek_ to the end of the yard, a large stately woman, who looked like a dowager d.u.c.h.ess, staggered in under the weight of many bundles, followed by a haughty satellite with a Wellington nose, who might have been at least a princess of the blood, so scornful was her air and the swish of her petticoat. I had never seen these imposing people before and wondered who they could possibly be, but they evidently had the advantage of me in this matter, for I distinctly heard my name whispered between them.

They surveyed me curiously as if glad to have an opportunity of inspecting me so closely. I returned their gaze tranquilly and at last they went away.

Eventually there was no one left in the yard but Mrs Marriott and myself. I looked at her. She sat absolutely still on her untidy heap of clothes, her body slightly bent forward, both hands tucked down in her lap. A straw sailor-hat was pulled over her face, and her lank, heavy, dark hair lay in a dreary sort of knot far down the nape of her neck, shewing, between hat and hair, a long, unbeautiful line that had a kind of despair in it. Her thin figure in a well-fitting gown might have been pretty and temperamental, but in the faded pink blouse, and now historical grey skirt, soiled and shapeless and frayed at the edges, she was merely thin and shabby and utterly unattractive. I never saw a more hopeless look worn by any woman. It was not only that she was shabby--she was as spiritless as a dead crow. Her clothes drooped upon her as the leaves of a withering pumpkin flower droop in the sun. Her face wore the terrible look of uninteresting, unloved middle-age that even despair cannot mark with distinction. Yet she must once have had good looks far above the average. The traces of them were on her still--but they were only traces.

Presently Mrs Valetta and her party arrived. Adriana, loaded like a beast of burden, brought my dressing-case to me immediately, but the others when they saw me turned and fled as if from the yellow peril.

Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, extraordinarily pale and subdued, made her way to her striped tent, followed by her husband who talked vivaciously and fondly to the back of her gown. He had a very thick-lipped mouth with a tiny straw-coloured moustache perched upon it, whilst around it a smile hovered unceasingly. He seemed to breathe the spirit of good-will and _camaraderie_ (mingled with other spirits) towards all the world: but it was evident that Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was not under his spell. She kept on, saying nothing. Only, as she went to pull down the flap of the tent I saw her eyes snapping, and she pulled so hard that the tent flapped over on her and her devoted husband, whereupon a number of strange words issued in m.u.f.fled tones from under the billowing canvas; and they were not all uttered in a man's voice. Later, whilst they were at the business of pegging it out again, Mrs Valetta came on to the verandah and called out that she and Miss Cleeve had found a small room for themselves. Mr Skeffington-Smythe blithely responded:

"Ah! Good--That is good.--very good. I will come and see what I can do for you presently when I have fixed up my dear little woman."

But Mr Skeffington-Smythe uttered never a word. Only, when next her Monty addressed a fond remark to her she very briefly and violently replied:

"Oh, shut up!"

It was plain that I was to be left to my fate. Adriana had brought some rugs and thrown them on to my dressing-case, and I seated myself upon them to consider the matter of accommodation for the night. A slight drizzle of rain began to fall, making the fires hiss softly, and throwing a sad little veil over everything.

Perhaps I looked nearly as hopeless and forlorn as Mrs Marriott, but I was far from feeling so. I had the light heart of the woman who loves and is beloved again, with the whole of life stretching out beautifully before me, and it would have taken more than all the rain out of heaven to drench the joy out of me that night. All the same it behoved me to be up and doing. There was no sense in getting wet and it also seemed indicated that I should rescue Mrs Marriott from a watery fate.

Certainly, I had heard her refuse to have anything to do with that nice, kind little Mrs Burney, but Mrs Burney had not had a pa.s.sionate flame of love and faith re-lit in her heart that very night as I had. I felt loving-kind to all the world, and as though I could simply feed on snubs if only they came from some one who was really unhappy--not merely cross or spiteful.

And surely this poor woman sitting on the rugs was unhappy, and had cause to be. I remembered Dr Marriott's face as he turned to the west, and the new light that had been lit in his doomed eyes by the strong, kind action of Anthony Kinsella--_my_ Anthony Kinsella.

We were alone in the big yard now--Mrs Marriott and I; and silence reigned, except for the murmur of Mr Skeffington-Smythe's voice inside the closed tent. Perhaps he was explaining to his dear little woman why he was the only man in the town not out on patrol or helping with the barricades.

I moved stealthily in the direction of my premeditated attack.

"Mrs Marriott!" I said in a pathetic way I have. "I do wish you would take care of me and let me stay with you to-night. I've been left out in the cold by the other women."

She turned a pair of utterly tragic eyes upon me. Her mouth was the mouth of a woman with whom things had always gone wrong.

"I would rather be alone," she said in her cold, dull way. This was not encouraging but I persisted, and my voice became very wistful indeed.

"Oh, _do_ be friendly. I am a stranger here and I feel utterly lost.

What does one do in _laager_?"

She looked at me vaguely.

"I don't know. It is a new kind of misery to me, too."

"Well, let's beat it out together, shall we? We ought to be able to find a corner somewhere. Will you come with me to search?"

She stared at me for a moment, then stood up hesitatingly. I made haste to lead the way. After making a tour of the verandah and looking into every window we came to, we went inside and tried all the doors. Most of them were locked, signifying that the room was full-up. At last there was no place left except to try the room where the sorting and storing of mails went on. The main part of this was a wide pa.s.sage with a door at each end--an impossible place to camp out in. However, there was a counter with a wooden part.i.tion above it, and going behind this I discovered quite a cosey little retreat. It had rather a mail-baggy smell, but that was a trifle to be ignored in such times of stress as these.

"We can make ourselves quite comfy here," I said. "When we have locked both doors in case the postmaster unexpectedly returns. Now let us get our mattresses and rugs, shall we?"

She had no mattress: only a few striped coloured blankets of the kind that the natives drape around themselves. However, I had plenty of rugs, and my mattress though narrow was wide enough for two at a pinch.

But she jibbed at sharing it.

"Why should I make you uncomfortable?" she said.

I stared at her and laughed. "Dear Mrs Marriott, I shall be ever so much more uncomfortable if you don't. Now be a brick and do as I ask you."

For some unknown reason her eyes filled with tears and her mouth began to quiver in a queer way. I turned away hastily, and having bolted the outside door began to barricade it with a heap of empty mail-bags.

Whilst I was rummaging I came quite by accident upon the postmaster's little private supply of stores, and in the spirit of martial-law I immediately commandeered them for the public benefit. There were sugar, tea, candles, some tins of "bully beef" and a canister of delicious-smelling coffee.

"_Banzai_! We'll be able to make some coffee to keep their spirits up-- they must be jolly tired. Come along, Mrs Marriott, let's go and commandeer some of that crockery and the kettle of water in the yard."

She seemed quite keen, so we unbarred and unbolted again and went out to the yard-fire where the kettle was still l.u.s.tily boiling, and in five minutes we had two large jugs full of excellent coffee ready. There is a saying that Boers come to coffee as the _asvogels_ come to dead ox.

Very disgusting, but evidently true, for the smell of our coffee woke up the Boer family in their prison cell and they came meandering forth, sat down in a ring round the fire, and looked so wistfully and eloquently at the big jug that we had to give them some all round, especially as we were using their crockery. Afterwards they lent us their beakers and enamel cups and we made a forced march to the barricades. When the barricaders also smelt the _arome de Java_ on the breeze and saw the big jugs we were carrying they raised a cheer, and the postmaster said:

"By the Lord, that's my coffee, or I'm a Boer!"

We gave him a cup for forgiveness' sake, and Colonel Blow too, and afterwards the rest of them came up in parties and we ministered to them, was.h.i.+ng the cups after each lot in a pail of water. When all the white men had finished, we served the black constables and convicts a beakerful apiece, Colonel Blow having sent to their quarters for their own beakers. The convicts, melancholy-looking fellows, surveyed me with a shy curiosity, I suppose because I was a newcomer. But Colonel Blow for some reason seemed to resent their looking at me, for as soon as he noticed it he gave a rough order in the native tongue that made them all look hurriedly in another direction.

I told the postmaster that we had invaded his sanctum, but he was quite charming about it, and at once bestowed upon us the freedom of the post-office. He said we could even use the postage stamps if they were of any use to us.