Flower o' the Peach

CHAPTER XIV

The drawing-room of the Sanatorium was available until tea-time for the practice of correspondence. It offered for this purpose a small table with the complexion of mahogany and a leather top, upon which reposed an inkstand containing three pots, marked respectively in plain letters, "black," "red," and "copying," and a number of ancient pens. When a new arrival had overcome his wonder and consternation at the various features of the establishment, he usually signalized his acceptance of what lay before him by writing to Capetown for a fountain-pen. As old inhabitants of the Cape reveal themselves to the expert eye by carrying their tobacco loose in a side pocket of their coats, so the patient who had conceded Dr. Jakes' claims to indulgence was to be distinguished by the possession of a pen that made him independent of the establishment's supply and frequently by stains of ink upon his waistcoat in the region of the left-hand upper pocket, where custom has decided a man shall carry his fountain-pen.

Margaret had brought her unanswered letters to this privacy and her fountain-pen was busy in the undisturbed interval following the celebration of lunch. Hers was the common task of the exile in South Africa, to improvize laboriously letters to people at home who had plenty to see and do and no need of the post to inject spice into their varied lives. There was nothing to write about, nothing to relate; the heat of the sun, the emptiness of the veld, the grin of Fat Mary – each of her letters played over these worn themes. Yet unless they were written and sent, the indifferent folk to whom they were addressed would not write to her, and the weekly mail, with its excitements and its reminders, would fail her. No dweller in lands where the double knock of the postman comes many times in the day can know the thrill of the weekly mail, discharged from the steamship in Capetown and heralded in its progress up the line by telegrams that announce to the little dorps along the railway the hour of its coming. They have not waited with a patient, preoccupied throng in the lobby of the post-office where the numbered boxes are, and heard beyond the wooden partition the slam of the bags and the shuffle of the sorters, talking at their work about things remote from the mail. The Kafir mail-runners, with their skinny naked legs and their handfuls of smooth sticks know how those letters are awaited in the hamlets and farms far remote from the line, by sun-dried, tobacco-flavored men who are up before the dawn to receive them, by others whose letters are addressed to names they are not called by, and by Mrs. Jakes, full-dressed and already a little tired two hours before breakfast. All those letters are paid for by screeds that suck dry the brains of their writers, desperately searching over the chewed ends of penholders for suggestions on barren ground.

There was one letter which Margaret had set herself to compose that had a different purpose. There were not lacking signs that her position in Dr. Jakes' household would sooner or later become impossible, and it was desirable to clear the road for a retreat when no other road would be open to her. It was not only that Mrs. Jakes burned to be rid of her and had taken of late to dim hints of her desire in this respect, for Margaret was prepared, if she were forced to it, to find Mrs. Jakes' enmity amusing and treat it in that light. Such a course, she judged would paralyze Mrs. Jakes; in the face of laughter, the little woman was impotent. But there was also the prospect, daily growing nearer and more threatening, of an exposure which would show her ruthlessly forth as the friend and confidante of the Kafir, Kamis, the woman for whom Ford and Mr. Samson, had, in their own phrase, "no use." The hour when that exposure should be made loomed darkly ahead; nothing could avert its sinister advance upon her, nor lighten it of its quality of doom. She no longer invited her secret to make itself known. By degrees the warnings of Kamis, the threats of Boy Bailey, the malice of Mrs. Jakes, had struck their roots in her consciousness, and she was becoming acclimatized to the South-African spirit which threatens with vague penalties, not the less real for being vague, such transgressors as she of its one iron rule of life and conduct. When it should come upon her, she decided, she would summon her strength to accept it, and confront it serenely, in the manner of good breeding. But when that was done, she would have to go.

She was writing therefore to the legal uncle of Lincoln's Inn Fields, who controlled her affairs and manifested himself with sprightly letters and punctual cheques. He was an opinionative uncle, like most men who jest along the established lines of humor, but amenable to a reasonable submissiveness on the part of his ward and niece. He liked to be inflexible – good-naturedly inflexible, like an Olympian who condescends to earth, but he could be counted upon to repay an opportunity for a display of his inflexibility by liberal indulgence upon other points. Therefore Margaret, after consideration, commenced the serious part of her epistle to the heathen with a suggestion in regard to investments which she knew would rouse him. Then, in a following paragraph:

I am better than I was when I came out, but not better than I was a month ago, and I don't think I am improving as rapidly as Dr. David hoped. It may be that I am a little too far to the East of the Karoo. Was it you or somebody else who advised me to keep to the West?

"That 'll help to fetch him," murmured Margaret, as she wrote the last words.

Perhaps, later on, if Dr. Jakes thinks well of it, I might move to a place I hear of over in the West. I 'm letting you know now in plenty of time; but I don't want you to think there is anything seriously wrong. Please don't be at all anxious.

"Now something fluffy," pondered Margaret. "If I get it right, he 'll order me to go."

What makes me hesitate, she wrote, is the trouble it will cost me to move from here. Would you please show this letter to Dr. David and ask his opinion?

"That 'll do the trick," she decided unscrupulously. "Dr. David will see there 's something in it and he 'll back me up. And then, when the row comes, they shall each have a cut at me, – Mrs. Jakes and Fat Mary and all – they shall each have their chance to draw blood, and then I 'll go."

While she wrote, there had been the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of the hall outside the room, but she had been too busy to note them. Otherwise, she would quickly have marked an unfamiliar foot among them. They were reduced to that at the Sanatorium; they knew every foot that sounded on its floors and a strange one fetched them running to look from doors. But Margaret's occupation had robbed her of that mild exhilaration, and she looked up all unsuspiciously as Mrs. Jakes pushed open the door of the drawing-room, entered and closed it carefully behind her.

She came a couple of paces into the room and halted, looking at the girl in a manner that recalled to Margaret that fantastic night when she had come with a candle to seek aid for Dr. Jakes. Though she had not now her little worried smile, she wore the same bewildered and embarrassed aspect, as of a purpose crossed and complicated by considerations and doubts.

"Are you looking for me, Mrs. Jakes?" asked Margaret, when she had waited in vain for her to speak.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes, in a hushed voice, and remained where she stood.

Again Margaret waited in vain for her to speak.

"I 'm rather busy just now," she said. "What is it you want with me, please?"

Mrs. Jakes looked to see that the door was closed before she answered.

"It isn't me," she said then. "We – we don't get on very well, Miss Harding; but this isn't my doing. I 've never whispered a word to a soul. I haven't, indeed, if I never speak another word."

Margaret stared at her, perceiving suddenly that the small bleak woman was all a-thrill with some nervous tension. Her own nerves quivered in response to it.

"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?"

"It 's the police," breathed Mrs. Jakes. She gave the word the accent in which she felt it. "The police," she said, with a stricken sense of all that police stand for, of which unbearable and public shame is chief. She was trembling, and her small hands, with their rough red knuckles like raw scars upon them, were picking feverishly at her loose black skirt.

Margaret's heart beat the more quickly at the mere tone of her whisper, fraught with dim fears; but the words conveyed nothing to her. If anything, they relieved her. In the hinterland of her consciousness the forward-cast shadow of that impending hour was perpetually dark; but the police could have no concern in that.

"Oh, do please talk plainly," she said irritably. "What exactly do you want to tell me? And what have I got to do with the police?"

The stimulus of her impatient tones was what was needed to restore Mrs. Jakes to coherence. She stared at the girl with a sort of stupefaction.

"What have you got to do with it," she repeated. "Why – it 's all about you. Somebody 's told about you and that Kafir – about you knowing him and all about him, and now Mr. Van Zyl is in the doctor's study. He 's come to inquire about it."

"Oh," said Margaret slowly.

It had struck then, the bitter hour of revelation; it had crept upon her out of an ambush of circumstance when she least expected it, and the reckoning was due. There was to be no time allowed her in which to build up her courage; even her retreat must be over strange roads. Before the gong went to gather the occupants of the house for tea, the stroke would have fallen, and her place in the minds of her fellows would be with Dr. Jakes on the hearth-rug, an outcast from their circle. Unless, indeed, Dr. Jakes should also decline her company, as seemed likely.

It was the image in her mind of a scornful and superior Jakes that excited the smile with which she looked up at Jakes' frightened wife.

"So long as he does n't bother me, he can inquire as much as he likes," she said.

Mrs. Jakes did not understand. "It 's you he 's going to inquire of," she said. "I suppose, of course – I suppose you 'll tell him about – about that night?"

"I shan't tell him anything," replied Margaret. "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Mrs. Jakes. I 'm not going to take this opportunity of punishing you for all your unpleasantness. I shall simply refuse to answer any questions at all."

"You can't do that." Mrs. Jakes showed her relief plainly in her face and in the relaxation of her attitude. She had forgotten one of the first rules of her manner of warfare, which is to doubt the enemy's word. But in spite of a reluctant gratitude for the contemptuous mercy accorded to her, she felt dully resentful at this high attitude of Margaret's towards the terrors of the police.

"You can't do that," she said. "He 's got a right to know – and he 's a sub-inspector. He 'll insist – he 'll make you tell – "

"I think not," said Margaret quietly.

"But he 's – "

Mrs. Jakes broke off sharply as a hand without turned the handle of the door and pushed it open. Ford appeared, and paused at the sight of them in conversation.

"Hallo," he said. "Am I interrupting?"

Mrs. Jakes hesitated, but Margaret answered with decision.

"Not at all," she said. "Come in, please."

It occurred to her that the blow would be swifter if Ford himself were present when it fell and there were no muddle of explanations to drag it out.

Ford entered reluctantly, scenting a quarrel between the two and suspicious of Margaret's intentions in desiring his presence.

"There 's a horse and orderly by the steps," he said. "Is Van Zyl somewhere about? That's why I came in, to see if he was here."

"He – he is in the study," answered Mrs. Jakes, in extreme discomfort. She turned to Margaret. "If you will come now, I will take you to him."

Ford turned, surprised.

"What for?" asked Margaret.

"He – sent for you." Mrs. Jakes did not understand the question; she only perceived dimly that some quality in the situation was changed and that she no longer counted in it.

"But what the dickens did he do that for?" asked Ford.

"We 'll see," said Margaret, forestalling Mrs. Jakes' bewildered reply. "Please tell him, Mrs. Jakes, that I am here and can spare him a few minutes at once."

"Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and departed.

Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret.

"What's up?" he inquired. "You haven't been murdering somebody and not letting me help?"

Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard over her composure and could not afford to jest.

"Sit down over there," she bade him, motioning him towards the couch at the other side of the wide room. "And don't go away, even if he asks you to. Then you 'll hear all about it."

He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against the end of the couch with one long leg lying up on the cushions.

"If he talks in the tone of his message to you," he said meditatively, "I shall be for punching his head."

Sub-Inspector Van Zyl had had the use of a clothes-brush before expressing his desire to see Margaret; it was a tribute he paid to his high official mission. He had cleared himself and his accoutrement of dust and the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he presented himself in the drawing-room, pausing in the doorway with his spurred heels together to lift his hand in a precise and machine-like salute. At his back, Mrs. Jakes' unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation of her countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one side of him, heightened his military stolidity. His stone-blue eyes rested on Ford's recumbence with a shadow of surprise.

"Afternoon, Ford," he said curtly. "You 'll excuse me, but I 've a word or two to say to Miss Harding."

"Afternoon, Van Zyl," replied Ford, not moving. "Miss Harding asked me to stay, so don't mind me."

Van Zyl looked at him inexpressively. "I 'm on duty," he said. "Sorry, but I wish you 'd go. My business is with Miss Harding."

"Fire away," replied Ford. "I shan't say a word unless Miss Harding wishes it."

Margaret moved in her chair.

"You will say what you please," she said. "Don't regard me at all, Mr. Ford. Now – what can I do for you, Mr. Van Zyl?"

Van Zyl finished his scrutiny of Ford and turned to her.

"I sent to ask you to see me in the other room, Miss Harding, because I thought you would prefer me to speak to you in private," he said, with his wooden preciseness of manner. "That was why. Sorry if it offended you. However – "

He stood aside and held the door while Mrs. Jakes entered, and closed it behind her. Stalking imperturbably, he placed a chair for her and drew one out for himself, depositing his badged "smasher" hat on the ground beside it. Seated, he drew from his smoothly immaculate tunic a large note-book and snapped its elastic band open and laid it on his knee. Ford, from his place on the couch, watched these preparations with gentle interest.

Van Zyl looked up at Margaret with a pencil in his fingers. His pale, uncommunicative eyes fastened on her with an unemotional assurance in their gaze.

"First," he said; "where were you, Miss Harding, on the afternoon of the – th?"

He mentioned a date to which Margaret's mind ran back nimbly. It was the day on which Boy Bailey had made terms from the top of the dam wall, the day on which the Kafir had kissed her hand, nearly two weeks before.

She had herself sufficiently in hand, and returned his gaze with a faint smiling tranquillity that told him nothing.

"I have no information to give you, Mr. Van Zyl," she replied evenly. "It is quite useless to ask me any questions; I shan't answer them."

He was not disturbed. "Sorry," he said, "but I 'm afraid you must. I hope you 'll remember that I have my duty to do, Miss Harding."

"Must, eh?"

That was Ford, thoughtfully, from the couch. Van Zyl looked in his direction sharply with a brief frown, but let it pass.

"It's no use, Mr. Van Zyl," said Margaret. "I simply am not going to answer any questions, and your duty has nothing to do with me. So if there is nothing else that you wish to say to me, your business is finished."

"No," he said; "it isn't finished yet, Miss Harding. You refuse to say where you were on that afternoon?"