CHAPTER XVI
PRETORIA
Jess was not very happy at Pretoria previous to the unexpected outbreakof hostilities. Most people who have made a great moral effort, andafter some severe mental struggle have entered on the drear path fromself-sacrifice, experience the reaction that will follow as certainlyas the night follows the day. It is one thing to renounce the light,to stand in the full glow of the setting beams of our imperial joy andchant out our farewell, and quite another to live alone in the darkness.For a little while memory may support us, but memory grows faint. Onevery side is the thick, cheerless pall and that stillness through whichno sound comes. We are alone, quite alone, cut off from the fellowshipof the day, unseeing and unseen. More especially is this so when thedungeon is of our own making, and we ourselves have shot its bolts.There is a natural night that comes to all, and in its unwavering courseswallows every mortal hope and fear, for ever and for ever. To this wecan more easily resign ourselves, for we recognise the universal lotand bow ourselves beneath the all-effacing hand. The earth does not pinewhen the daylight passes from its peaks; it only sleeps.
But Jess had buried herself and she knew it. There was no absolute needfor her to have sacrificed her affection to her sister's: she had doneso of her own will, and at times not unnaturally she was regretful.Self-denial is a stern-faced angel. If only we hold him fast and wrestlewith him long enough he will speak us soft words of happy sound, justas, if we wait long enough in the darkness of the night, stars will cometo share our loneliness. Still this is one of those things that Timehides from us and only reveals at his own pleasure; and, so far as Jesswas concerned, his pleasure was not yet. Outwardly, however, she showedno sign of her distress and of the passion which was eating at herheart. She was pale and silent, it is true, but then she had always beenremarkable for her pallor and silence. Only she gave up her singing.
So the weeks passed very drearily for the poor girl, who was doing whatother people did--eating and drinking, riding, and going to parties likethe rest of the Pretoria world, till at last she began to think thatshe had better be returning home again, lest she should wear out herwelcome. And yet she dreaded to do so, mindful of her daily prayer to bedelivered from temptation. As to what was happening at Mooifontein shewas in almost complete ignorance. Bessie wrote to her, of course, and sodid her uncle once or twice, but they did not tell her much of what shewanted to know. Bessie's letters were, it is true, full of allusionsto what Captain Niel was doing, but she did not go beyond that. Herreticence, however, told her observant sister more than her words. Whywas she so reticent? No doubt because things still hung in the balance.Then Jess would think of what it all meant for her, and now and againgive way to an outburst of passionate jealousy which would have beenpainful enough to witness if anybody had been there to see it.
Thus the time went on towards Christmas, for Jess, having been warmlypressed to do so, had settled to stay over Christmas and return to thefarm with the new year. There had been a great deal of talk in the townabout the Boers, but she was too much preoccupied with her own affairsto pay much attention to it. Nor, indeed, was the public mind greatlymoved; they were so much accustomed to Boer scares at Pretoria, andhitherto these had invariably ended in smoke. But all of a sudden,on the morning of the eighteenth of December, came the news of theproclamation of the Republic. The town was thrown into a ferment, andthere arose a talk of going into laager, so that, anxious as she wasto get away, Jess could see no hope of returning to the farm till theexcitement was over. Then, a day or two later, Conductor Egerton camelimping into Pretoria from the scene of the disaster at Bronker'sSpruit, with the colours of the 94th Regiment tied round his middle,and such a tale to tell that the blood went to her heart and seemed tostagnate there as she listened.
After that there was confusion worse confounded. Martial law havingbeen proclaimed, the town, which was large, straggling, and incapable ofdefence, was abandoned, the inhabitants being ordered into laager on thehigh ground overlooking the city. There they were, young and old, sickand well, delicate women and little children, all crowded together inthe open under the cover of the fort, with nothing but canvas tents,waggons, and sheds to shelter them from the fierce summer suns andrains. Jess shared a waggon with her friend and her friend's sister andmother, and found it rather a tight fit even to lie down. Sleep with allthe noises of the camp going on round her was almost impossible.
It was about three o'clock on the day following that first miserablenight in the laager when, by the last mail that passed into Pretoria,she received Bessie's letter, announcing her engagement to John. Shetook her letter and went some way from the camp to the side of SignalHill, where she was not likely to be disturbed, and, finding a nookshaded by mimosa-trees, sat down and broke the envelope. Before she hadreached the foot of the first page she saw what was coming and set herteeth. Then she read the long epistle through from beginning to endwithout flinching, though the words of affection seemed to burn her. Soit had come at last. Well, she expected it, and had plotted to bring itabout, so really there was no reason in the world why she should feeldisappointed. On the contrary, she ought to rejoice, and for a littlewhile she really did rejoice in her sister's happiness. It made her gladto think that Bessie, whom she so dearly loved, was happy.
And yet she felt angry with John with that sort of anger which we feelagainst those who have blindly injured us. Why should it be in his powerto hurt her so cruelly? Still she hoped that he would be happy withBessie, and then she hoped that these wretched Boers would takePretoria, and that she would be shot or otherwise put out of the way.She had no heart for life; all the colour had faded from her sky. Whatwas she to do with her future? Marry somebody and busy herself withrearing a pack of children? It would be a physical impossibility to her.No, she would go away to Europe and mix in the great stream of life andstruggle with it, and see if she could win a place for herself among thepeople of her day. She had it in her, she knew that; and now that shehad put herself out of the reach of passion she would be more likely tosucceed, for success is to the impassive, who are also the strong. Shewould not stop on the farm after John and Bessie were married; shewas quite determined as to that; nor, if she could avoid it, would shereturn there before they were married. She would see him no more, nomore! Alas, that she had ever seen him.
Feeling somewhat happier, or at any rate calmer, in this decision, sherose to return to the noisy camp, extending her walk, however, by adetour towards the Heidelberg road, for she was anxious to be alone aslong as she could. She had been walking some ten minutes when she caughtsight of a cart that seemed familiar to her, with three horses harnessedin front of it and one tied behind, which were also familiar. There weremany men walking alongside the cart all talking eagerly.
Jess halted to let the little procession go by, when suddenly sheperceived John Niel among these men and recognised the Zulu Mouti on thebox. _There_ was the man whom she had just vowed never to see again, andthe sight of him seemed to take all her strength out of her, so thatshe felt inclined to sink down upon the veldt. His sudden appearance wasalmost uncanny in the sharpness of its illustration of her impotence inthe hands of Fate. She felt it then; all in an instant it seemed to beborne in upon her mind that she could not help herself, but was onlythe instrument in the hands of a superior power whose will she wasfulfilling through the workings of her passion, and to whom herindividual fate was a matter of little moment. It was inconclusivereasoning and perilous doctrine, but it must be allowed that thecircumstances gave it a colour of truth. And, after all, the border-linebetween fatalism and free-will has never been quite authoritativelysettled, even by St. Paul, so perhaps she was right. Mankind does notlike to admit it, but it is, at the least, a question whether we canoppose our little wills against the forces of a universal law, orderange the details of an unvarying plan to suit the petty wants andhopes of individual mortality. Jess was a clever woman, but it wouldtake a wiser head than hers to know where or when to draw that red lineacross the writings
of our lives.
On came the cart and the knot of men, then suddenly John looked up andsaw her gazing at him with those dark eyes that at times did indeedseem as though they were the windows of her soul. He turned and saidsomething to his companions and to the Zulu Mouti, who went on with thecart, then he came towards her smiling and with outstretched hand.
"How do you do, Jess?" he said. "So I have found you all right?"
She took his hand and answered, almost angrily, "Why have you come? Whydid you leave Bessie and my uncle?"
"I came because I was sent, also because I wished it. I wanted to bringyou back home before Pretoria was besieged."
"You must have been mad! How could you expect to get back? We shall bothbe shut up here together now."
"So it appears. Well, things might be worse," he added cheerfully.
"I do not think that anything could be worse," she answered with a stampof her foot, then, quite thrown off her balance, she burst incontinentlyinto a flood of tears.
John Niel was a very simple-minded man, and it never struck him toattribute her grief to any other cause than anxiety at the state ofaffairs and at her incarceration for an indefinite period in a besiegedtown that ran the daily risk of being taken _vi et armis_. Still he wasa little hurt at the manner of his reception after his long and mostperilous journey, which is not, perhaps, to be wondered at.
"Well, Jess," he said, "I think that you might speak a little morekindly to me, considering--considering all things. There, don't cry,they are all right at Mooifontein, and I dare say that we shall win backthere somehow some time or other. I had a nice business to get here atall, I can tell you."
Suddenly she stopped weeping and smiled, her tears passing away like asummer storm. "How did you get through?" she asked. "Tell me all aboutit, Captain Niel," and accordingly he did.
She listened in silence while he sketched the chief events of hisjourney, and when he had done she spoke in quite a changed tone.
"It is very good and kind of you to have risked your life like this forme. Only I wonder that you did not all of you see that it would be of nouse. We shall both be shut up here together now, that is all, and thatwill be very sad for you and Bessie."
"Oh! So you have heard of our engagement?" he said.
"Yes, I read Bessie's letter about a couple of hours ago, and Icongratulate you both very much. I think that you will have the sweetestand loveliest wife in South Africa, Captain Niel; and I think thatBessie will have a husband any woman might be proud of;" and she halfbowed and half curtseyed to him as she said it, with a graceful littleair of dignity that was very taking.
"Thank you," he answered simply; "yes, I think I am a very luckyfellow."
"And now," she said, "we had better go and see about the cart. You willhave to find a stand for it in that wretched laager. You must be verytired and hungry."
A few minutes' walk brought them to the cart, which Mouti had outspannedclose to Mrs. Neville's waggon, where Jess and her friends were living,and the first person they saw was Mrs. Neville herself. She was a good,motherly colonial woman, accustomed to a rough life, and one not easilydisturbed by emergencies.
"My goodness, Captain Niel!" she cried, as soon as Jess had introducedhim. "Well, you are plucky to have forced your way through all thosehorrid Boers! I am sure I wonder that they did not shoot you or beatyou to death with _sjambocks_, the brutes. Not that there is much usein your coming, for you will never be able to take Jess back till SirGeorge Colley relieves us, and that can't be for two months, they say.Well, there is one thing; Jess will be able to sleep in the cart now,and you can have one of the patrol-tents and camp alongside. It won'tbe quite proper, perhaps, but in these times we can't stop to considerpropriety. There, there, you go off to the Governor. He will be gladenough to see you, I'll be bound; I saw him at the other end of the campfive minutes ago. We will have the cart unpacked and arrange about thehorses."
Thus adjured, John departed, and when he returned half an hourafterwards, having told his eventful tale, which did not, however,convey any information of general value, he was rejoiced to find thatthe process of "getting things straight" was almost complete. What wasbetter still, Jess had fried him a beefsteak over the camp fire, and wasnow employed in serving it on a little table by the waggon. He sat downon a stool and ate his meal heartily enough, while Jess waited on himand Mrs. Neville chattered incessantly.
"By the way," she said, "Jess tells me that you are going to marry hersister. Well, I wish you joy. A man wants a wife in this country. Itisn't like England, where in five cases out of six he might as well goand cut his throat as get married. It saves him money here, and childrenare a blessing, as Nature meant them to be, and not a burden, ascivilisation has made them. Lord, how my tongue does run on! It isn'tdelicate to talk about children when you have only been engaged a coupleof weeks; but, you see, that's what it comes to after all. She's apretty girl, Bessie, and a good one too--I don't know her much--thoughshe hasn't got the brains of Jess here. That reminds me; as you areengaged to Bessie, of course you can look after Jess, and nobody willthink anything of it. Ah! if you only knew what a place this is fortalk, though their talk is pretty well scared out of them now, I'mthinking. My husband is coming round presently to the cart to help toget Jess's bed into it. Lucky it's big. We are such a tight fit in thatwaggon that I shall be downright glad to see the last of the dear girl;though, of course, you'll both come and take your meals with us."
Jess heard all this in silence. She could not well insist upon stoppingin the crowded waggon; it would be asking too much; and, besides, shehad passed one night there, and that was quite enough for her. Once shesuggested that she should try to persuade the nuns to take her in at theconvent, but Mrs. Neville suppressed the notion instantly.
"Nuns!" she said; "nonsense. When your own brother-in-law--at least hewill be your brother-in-law if the Boers don't make an end of us all--ishere to take care of you, don't talk about going to a parcel of nuns. Itwill be as much as they can do to look after themselves, I'll be bound."
As for John, he ate his steak and said nothing. The arrangement seemed avery proper one to him.
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