No Place For a Lady

by Ann Harries

  16 May

  Today Sarah and I have managed to get a pass which allows us to ride a couple of wild little Basuto ponies out on to the veldt beyond Bloemfontein and towards the no-longer-besieged Kimberley. The ponies are in their element here, being the same breed as those used by the Boers and loving the freedom of the broad, flat plains; quite different from Missy Mare at home, who knows only obedience. We race each other like the wind in this empty landscape. I don’t know which is emptier – the land or the sky. Certainly the sky is vaster, there being no hills or mountains or even trees to encroach on its space. You can almost understand why Kruger believes the earth to be flat.

  We came across a group of officers sitting smoking on the great red anthills that stud the landscape, their horses grazing nearby. These anthills make convenient seats for the army, it seems. The men made us stop and show our passes – in case we were Boer spies, I suppose.

  ‘You have heard of ants in the pants, I expect,’ I said sarcastically, for nothing would induce me to sit on a mud hillock full of termites, dead or alive. Sarah blushed, for she finds such talk too risqué.

  ‘You know what De Wet does to those who disobey?’ laughed one of the officers.

  ‘I should hate to think!’ exclaimed I.

  ‘Ties ‘em over a live anthill for a couple of hours!’ exclaimed the officer. ‘And lets the ants do the punishing. We’re thinking of adopting the same tactics for those who show no respect …’

  ‘Would you care for a wee dram, ladies?’ offered another young officer who already seemed the worse for wear. ‘A new consignment’s just arrived. Ah, Scotland!’ and he held up his glass to the blazing sun. ‘To your hills and glens, to your rain and mist, to your pheasant and partridge – I salute you!’

  I was all for climbing down and joining them, but Sarah urged me away, reminding me that our passes expired within the hour – and that I was about to become an engaged woman …

  On our way back as we trotted side by side, she said in a reproachful voice, ‘How do you think Theodore would feel if he knew you were drinking whisky out in the veldt with tipsy officers? Can you really love him, Louise, if you can flirt behind his back?’

  I flinched at this, having had similar thoughts of my own, but nevertheless defended myself gamely. ‘Well, really, Sarah, I don’t think you have any understanding of the word ‘flirt’ nor how necessary flirting is to women like me who don’t have your natural attractions.’ There! Might as well put the knife in and let her have it. Trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice I continued, ‘We less well endowed women have to work harder at gaining the attention and admiration of men. For you it is effortless. Perhaps you should try to put yourself in my place.’ I could feel tears dangerously near.

  ‘But Louise!’ Sarah cried in a choked voice. ‘It is you who attract and amuse men, not I. Surely you know how I envy your – jeu d’esprit – your joyousness your humour. I am merely your shadow.’

  I drew in my pony and she was forced to stop as well. Taking a deep breath I said, ‘You may think me joyous, Sarah, but I can assure you that my happiness depends entirely on the approval of men. Without that, as you must know, I am in despair.’

  ‘So one man’s love is not enough for you?’

  ‘Yes, it is, of course it is, but I must constantly reassure myself that others admire me too.’ She was staring at me in amazement. ‘You take that admiration for granted. In fact, you aren’t even aware of it, as far as I can see.’

  She was silent for a minute. Then she said quietly, ‘I am aware of the admiration of one man.’

  I felt all my self-pity evaporate at once, so strong is my curiosity about the state of Sarah’s heart. Was she at last about to confess to me her secret passion?

  ‘May I ask who he is?’

  ‘Someone you would despise,’ she said simply.

  ‘Not a Tommy, surely?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘He belongs to a colonial brigade but he was born in this country.’

  ‘An officer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me more?’ I tried not to sound horrified.

  ‘There is still nothing to tell, dear Louise.’ She looked away and I felt she was lying.

  ‘I think you are very unwise to consort with someone of a lower class than your own, Sarah. Even I would not do that.’

  ‘I’m hardly consorting with him,’ she said in a small voice.

  I felt myself losing interest. ‘Well, all I can say is, be very careful. Whatever would your parents think?’

  She laughed a little shrilly. ‘You’re a fine one to ask me that. Have you ever cared what your parents think?’

  I tapped my pony’s flank with my whip, not caring to reply to that question. ‘Well I never,’ I exclaimed in rural Oxfordshire accents. ‘I can ‘ardly believe my hears!’

  And we both burst into slightly hysterical giggles as our ponies bounded forward, relieved to get away from the intensity of our exchange.

  I arrived at the Raadsaal to hear wild rumours circulating: Mafeking is about to be relieved! The siege has been going on for so long it will be strange to live without it.

  Rossetti Mansions, London, 17 May 1900

  ‘That can’t be Mrs Potter!’ exclaims Miss Griffen, peering out of the window of Number 33.

  Emily leans over her shoulder, unable to resist the mayhem that has suddenly broken out on the street, though it is well past nine p.m. ‘She’s evidently thrown off her fire-grate,’ she says sardonically, for that august lady is now running up and down Rossetti Street faster than Emily ever did, her hat awry, her hair falling over her shoulders as she tickles the faces of the passers-by with a peacock feather, and doubles up with laughter.

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her smile let alone laugh,’ says Emily, about to close the curtains. Then, snorting with sudden laughter herself, she points at the cherry tree beneath the window. ‘Just look at that, Griffy!’

  Brilliantly lit by the street lamp beside the tree, a pair of pinstriped buttocks bulges out from the mass of blossom. The owner of the trousers is delivering a tuneless rendering of the national anthem, while attaching a chain of miniature Union Jacks to the cherry tree twigs. He turns his face in purple triumph and grins fearfully down at the cheering crowd below.

  ‘Mr Somerset-Glance!’ cry Emily and Miss Griffen simultaneously; then collapse in cruel mirth as they watch the plump little man gingerly lower one spatted foot below the next, clinging to the trunk of the tree like a child to its mother while a band of delirious men, women and children leap round the corner, banging on tin pots and dustbin lids, chanting out two names in a fever of celebration: Baden-Powell (clash-clash boom!) Mafeking (bang-bang crash!).

  ‘You’d think we’d defeated Napoleon,’ says Emily sourly. ‘I assume Mafeking has been relieved.’ The sky begins to blaze with fireworks. She closes the curtains with a briskness that is final. ‘Let’s hope all this xenophobia isn’t going to affect our bookings.’

  The bookings, in fact, are going well. The women-only protest meeting against the annexation of the defeated Orange Free State is only a few weeks away, but tonight the entire nation appears to have suffered a personality change and succumbed to hysterical rejoicing at the relief of a little railway siding on the edge of South Africa. Who would have thought that the sober people of Britain were capable of such communal bliss? What if the stolid British people metamorphosed into the unfettered spirits found on the shores of the Mediterranean; if they continued to dance in the streets; if mafficking became a way of life? But Emily has more important things to think about, for Kate Courtney has persuaded the great poet William Watson to write a sonnet about the patriotism of anti-war women, and Madame San Carlo has agreed to declaim it from the stage of the Queen’s Hall.

  ‘I think we should have a thousand copies printed and distributed to the audience as they arrive,’ says Emily. ‘Good heavens, what on earth is that racket?’ She pulls a face.

  Miss Griffe
n peeks through the curtains. ‘Now Mrs Potter is leading a band of men and women beating biscuit tins and buckets with knives and forks. She is waving her feather in the air in time to the music! Oh do come and have a look, Emily dear.’

  ‘I can imagine it well enough,’ says Emily. She runs her finger down a list.

  ‘Oh, goodness, there’s poor Sophie twying to beat a path through the crowds. They keep pulling at her cloak and waving Union Jacks in her face. She looks wather iwwitated, I’m afraid.’

  ‘At least she’s escaped being tickled by Mrs Rouncewell,’ says Emily. She is poker-faced but Griffy can detect humour in the twitch of her lips.

  Tonight will go down in history as the greatest spontaneous expression of joy ever demonstrated by Britain (greater even, it is whispered, than those spectacular celebrations held for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, less than three years earlier). But Emily remains firmly in her flat, with Miss Griffen and Sophie, where they draw up a seating plan for the meeting on 17 June. Mr Courtney has expressed a longing to be smuggled into this exclusively female gathering, but Emily decides to allow him no further than the corridor, where he must be content to listen behind the red velvet curtains and not show his face.

  Bloemfontein, 17 May

  There it is again. The strains of music float out from Dr Chappell’s bungalow. Patch recognises some of the songs and can sing them himself ‘She Was Only A Bird In A Gilded Cage’; ‘Come Into The Garden, Maud’ ‘Drink To Me Only’ … He can hear Louise tittering, then teasing a group of officers who laugh uproariously. He can hear the clink of glasses, and the low voice of Sarah woven into the tissue of sound that billows in and out of the night air. Dr Chappell rewinds the phonograph. There is a scratch, a hiss, then a whole orchestra waltzes into the shocked Bloemfontein night.

  He’d get into trouble if they caught him here. But tomorrow he is leaving with his column: next week he’ll be marching north, scouring the land for treacherous Boer guerrillas. He must touch her before he leaves. He moves towards the roomy back stoep, lit up by lanterns and candles and lamps, all hung at different heights.

  How golden it all looks; how beautiful the ladies’ evening gowns; how smart the officers’ uniforms. Dr Chappell is winding up the phonograph again.

  Patch stands behind the huge blue gum tree in the back garden. While the music plays his body is molten. He can see her smiling dreamily at an attentive officer. She shakes her head. The officer moves to another seated woman and bends down to ask her something. She rises; they extend their arms as if for flight. Soon they are all dancing – waltzing, he thinks – to the gush of music. Only Sarah does not dance. She moves to one of the big concrete pillars that hold up the tin roof of the stoep and gazes out into the night. Dr Chappell rushes over to wind up the phonograph as the music begins to sag.

  Patch tilts his head from behind the tree and wills Sarah to look at him. But the darkness in the garden is dense. She is not going to see him unless he moves into the light thrown from the stoep. And then he will be seen, reported, disciplined …

  He thinks. A soft but clear sound will attract her attention. A small pebble? A whistle? Neither seems appropriate for attracting the attention of a Blessed Virgin.

  At once he remembers. He has the perfect sound. As long as Dr Chappell keeps the music going.

  Sarah wishes she hadn’t come. She had thought there was to be a concert, a string trio made up of medical officers. She would have been uplifted by the lightness and delicacy of the strings performing Haydn and Beethoven. Instead it turned out that Dr Chappell had just received a set of new phonograph records from a store in Cape Town, together with some other luxuries to which officers are entitled, and wanted everyone to hear them. The string trio could put aside their instruments and wait.

  Now there is dancing. She does not want to dance. She has never wanted to dance. She wants to go back to the bell tent. She wants to think about Patch and enjoy the sensations that such thoughts arouse.

  Dr Chappell is mercilessly replaying that Strauss waltz on his phonograph. The brilliance of Vienna ravishes the darkness of Bloemfontein. The stoep has become a ballroom. She hums the familiar tune. The beautiful not-so-blue Danube. The beautiful typhoid-infected Modder. The sick troopers have described it to her: fringed with African willows and fever trees; haunted by mynah birds and sacred ibis. This was never meant to be a battleground.

  Unexpectedly, a wave of nostalgia stirs deep inside her. Why is she suddenly overcome by homesickness for the grey skies of Hampstead; for the comfort of her soft bed; for the fire burning in the hearth and finely sliced sandwiches? Can those be tears pricking her eyes? A lump in her throat? Why is she thinking of Home when her heart is in Africa? She has not given the gloom of England a second thought for months.

  Her ears give her the answer. From out of the darkness a silvery tinkle is wafting across to her. The music could be spun from sugar – so sweet, so light, so delicious. It sings of home. Sweet Home. She is not humming the Blue Danube after all.

  The dancers, swirling energetically in the confines of the stoep, do not notice her departure. She moves out into the garden, following the Hansel-and-Gretel trail of sugary sound.

  Bill would be pleased to see to what use Patch is putting his musical snuff box now. The blessed virgin Sarah is answering its call, gliding across the long dry lawn, caught in its sticky sweetness. To encourage her further, he sings softly:

  An exile from Home, Splendour dazzles in vain

  Oh! Give me my lowly thatch’d Cottage again!

  He can feel her smile drift towards him in the dark. And gradually her form materialises out of the shadows of the night.

  Her shoulders gleam white in a haze of tulle. The music box falters, then stops. She is standing before him, saying nothing. She is an angel, cracked out of her stiff uniform. His eye travels down her evening frock, the colour of the palest sky. A beaded V-pattern in darker blue plunges down to a point below her waist, her waist is naturally slender, he can see that; not misshapen by stays. One hand holds up the hem of her froth of skirt to make walking easier. The waves of her hair are piled on top of her head – so much hair, twisted and tangled into loops and curls; he longs to pull out the combs that hold it up just to watch it tumble over her shoulders, but forces his hands to hang still.

  ‘I thought it might be you,’ she says softly.

  The Blue Danube has stopped flowing. A little laughing chatter replaces it.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ he whispers.

  Then a new music rises out of the phonograph. A violin is sobbing out a tender melody, an avowal of love, for sure. A piano picks out some jewel-like chords. Sarah begins to sway to the music.

  ‘Salut d’amour,’ she says.

  He steps towards her. That perfume rising from her body is almost too delicate for his nostrils, used to stronger stuff. Yet it is overwhelming him with its fragile power. He gazes down at her and lowers his face, his eyes and lips moving towards hers. He gathers her up against him, his mouth in her hair. He melts into her movements, so that they rock together, as fused as the violin with the piano, fused into a single sensation …

  ‘Sarah!’ Was it an hour or a minute later that Louise’s sharp call split them apart?

  ‘Where are you, Sarah?’ A torrent of noise is sweeping down from the stoep – shouting, cheering, handclapping.

  ‘Oh my God, where is she?’ An Australian nurse takes up the cry. Dr Chappell is no longer winding up the phonograph. Three cheers! Hip-hip – hoorah! And again hoorah!

  Sarah is laughing softly. Patch can feel her laughter flowing over him like warm scented water. Now that they are separated he wants to pull her to him and tear the tulle from her shoulder and bury his face in her flesh.

  ‘I must go,’ she apologises, with that broad smile he does not recognise. She steps towards him and pulls his face down to hers. It is she who is kissing him; he is being kissed by the Virgin’s soft lips. She pulls herself laughingly away just as he begins to s
lip his tongue into her mouth; he takes a deep breath.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow, Sarah. I came to say goodbye. I’m going north with my column. To join Bobs.’

  She blinks, trying to make sense of what he has said.

  ‘The war is nearly over. They say we’ll be back in a month.’

  From the stoep: ‘Sarah! We’re going to send out a search party!’

  ‘I don’t want to go, you know that.’ He fears she will weep.

  Instead she encloses him in her arms. Her fingers run down his thin body, sliding along his skeletal ribs, cupping his hipbones, and then, to his astonishment, brushing against his excited cock. Louise is shouting something that causes another ‘hoorah’ to break out, but now Sarah lifts her face and he kisses her again; her lips are warm and parted a little this time, suggestive enough to make him weak with desire.

  ‘Sarah!’

  There Louise stands beside the rose bushes, hands on hips, panting a little. She gazes at them, the excitement in her eyes slowly converting to surprise. Then pain. She does not move as they look up at her.

  ‘So that’s—’ The two words have an accusing ring, but delicacy prevents her from going on.

  Sarah detaches herself from Patch. She flits over to Louise and lays a hand on her friend’s arm.

  ‘This is Patrick Donnelly, the man I told you about. Patch, this is my friend Louise. She nurses in the Raadsaal.’ She looks pleadingly at both of them.

  Louise’s mouth drops open. For a moment Sarah thinks she is about to scream. Instead she says in a shaky voice, ‘Mafeking has been relieved.’ And before either of them can respond she wheels round and runs back to the villa.