A Veldt Official: A Novel of Circumstance

“What a heartless girl you are, Mona! Why did you play with the poor fellow like that? Of coarse its all fun to you – ”

“And death to him, you were going to say. But it isn’t. He’s glum enough now – but wait a year or two and see. He’ll brag about it then, and go about hinting, or more than hinting, that there was a stunning fine girl down Doppersdorp way – this, if he’s changed his abode – who was awfully smashed on him, and so on. Wait and see. I know them, and they’re all alike.” And the speaker stretched herself languidly, and yawned.

Grace Suffield hardly knew what to say, or whether to feel angry or laugh. But she was spared the necessity of replying, for Mona went on —

“By the way, we never see anything of Mr Musgrave now. Its ages since he’s been here.”

“I was nearly saying, ‘small wonder, after the way you treated him.’ But I won’t, for there, at any rate, is a man whom even you can’t make a fool of. He’s built of sterner stuff.”

“Is he?” with a provoking smile. “But what on earth do you mean, Grace, by ‘the way in which I treated him’?”

“Oh, you know very well what I mean. You did nothing but encourage him at first; then you cold-shouldered him, and launched out in a fast and furious flirtation with the new doctor, because he was new, I suppose.”

“So was the other. But, Grace, I didn’t cold-shoulder him. I liked the man. If he was so weak as to become jealous of the doctor, I can’t help it.”

“Weak!” flashed out Grace. “Weak! I don’t think there’s much weakness about Mr Musgrave, and I’m certain he’s not the sort of man to indulge in anything so – so – feeble as jealousy.”

“Then he won’t do for me,” rejoined Mona, with a light laugh. “I don’t care about a man who can’t be jealous. I like them to be jealous. Makes one more valuable, don’t you see.”

“All right, Mona, my child. I can only say what I’ve said more than once before, and that is, Wait until your own time comes, as come it assuredly will; then we shall see.”

Furious with herself for doing so, Mona was conscious of colouring ever so slightly at this prediction, often uttered, but coming now so close upon her former meditations. She took refuge by the bold expedient of running in right under the enemy’s guns.

“Far be it from me to disparage your knight errant, Gracie,” she replied, with a mischievous laugh, and a slight emphasis on ‘your.’ “So he is made of sterner stuff, is he?”

The only answer was a sniff of contempt.

“Very well,” she went on adopting this as an affirmative; “what will you bet me I don’t bring him to my feet in a fortnight, Gracie?”

“I won’t bet on anything so ridiculous – so atrocious,” was the tart reply. “Roden Musgrave is too far out of the ordinary specimen of a man to be twisted round even your finger, Mona.”

It was the speaker’s turn to colour now. She had spoken with such unconscious warmth that Mona was gazing fixedly at her with the most mischievous expression in the world.

“Oh!” was all she said. But the ejaculation spoke volumes.

It was a curious coincidence, but a coincidence, that Lambert, about halfway on his road to Doppersdorp, should encounter – or rather, so absent and self-absorbed was his mood, run right into – a couple of horsemen riding in the direction from which he had just come. Indeed, it was the cheery hail of one of the latter that first made him aware of their presence.

“Hi! Hallo, Lambert! You’re riding in the wrong direction, man. Turn round, turn round and come back with us. We are going to have a rhybok shoot to-morrow.”

But Charles Suffield’s hospitable suggestion only made Lambert scowl, and mutter something about having to be back. For the second of the two horsemen was the objectionable Musgrave himself, who carried a gun. The sight almost made him hesitate. He had no mind to leave the field open to his rival, for so, in his soreness and jealousy, he considered the other. His excuse, however, was not altogether a bogus one. Of late, quite an alarming proportion of his time had been spent at Quaggasfontein, and his patients were beginning to grumble, notably those who had ridden or driven some three or four hours to find him, and found him absent. His practice would suffer; for, apart from the possibility of the importation of a rival medico, there was a large proportion of people who would speedily find out their ability to do without treatment, from the mere fact that they had to. So he stuck to his intention as first expressed.

“Lambert looks a trifle off colour,” said Suffield, with a comical glance at his companion when they had resumed their way.

“Does he? I’m not sorry he didn’t leap at your suggestion. I don’t particularly care for the fellow.”

“He seems awfully gone on Mona, and I suppose she’s playing the fool with him, as usual. She’s a most incurable flirt, that girl, and she certainly does manage to bring them all to their knees. I tell her she’ll end her days an old maid.”

The other smiled drily over Suffield’s artless ramblings, for the two men had become very intimate by this time. It occurred to him that Mona had thought at one time to pass him through the same mill.

The warmth of welcome Roden met at the hands of his hostess was about equal to the warmth with which she scolded him. What did he mean by such behaviour? It was nearly a month since he had been near them. Busy? A great deal to do? Nonsense! She knew better than that. Doppersdorp Civil Servants were not the most hard-worked of their kind, there was always that redeeming point in the Godforsakenness of the place, and so on, and so on.

“That’s right, Mrs Suffield; crowd it on thick! Nothing like making up for lost time,” he laughed.

“Well, but – you deserve it.”

“Oh yes. I won’t make that bad excuse which is worse than none, and which you have been discounting before I made it. Besides, you owe me a blowing-up. I’m afraid I dragooned you far harder, when you were handed over to my tender mercies, crossing the river in the box.”

“Well, you were rather ill-tempered,” she admitted maliciously. “I wonder how Mona would have stood it.”

“Stood what? The crossing or the temper?” said Mona. “I’ve got a fine old crusted stock of the latter myself.”

“You have,” assented Roden.

“That’s rude.”

“Your own doing,” was the ready rejoinder. “You left me the choice of two evils, though, Miss Ridsdale. Wouldn’t it be ruder still to contradict a lady?”

“Go on, you two hair-splitters!” laughed Grace. “Mr Musgrave, I’ve put you in the same room you had last time. You know your way. Supper will be ready directly.”

“And you’d better turn on a fire in the sitting-room, Grace,” said Suffield. “The days are hot for July, in this high veldt, but the nights are nipping. Besides, like a nigger, I’m keen on a fire to smoke the evening pipe beside, when one can invent the shadow of an excuse for lighting one. It’s more snag, you know.”

And so it was. Seated there at the chimney-corner smoking the post-prandial pipe, while the burning logs crackled brightly, and conversation flowed free and unrestrained, varied by a song or two from Mona, as also from Suffield, who was no mean vocalist, and the prospect of some sport on the morrow, it occurred to Roden that life as at present constituted was a fairly enjoyable thing. That illustrious, if out-of-the-world township, Doppersdorp, might not have been precisely the locality he would have chosen as an abiding place; but even it contained compensating elements.

Chapter Eight.

Concerning the Chase

“Well, you two Sabbath-breakers!” was Grace Suffield’s laughing greeting to her husband and guest on the following morning, as she joined the two on the stoep, where they were cleaning and oiling a rifle apiece preparatory to the day’s doings. “So you’re not to be persuaded into abandoning your wicked enterprise?”

“It’s the only day a poor hard-worked Civil Servant has the whole of, Mrs Suffield,” answered Roden.

“Oh yes! I daresay. As if you couldn’t have as many days as you chose to ask for. But come in now. Breakfast is ready.”

They entered, and were immediately beset by the glum face and wistful entreaty of the eldest hopeful, begging to be allowed to come too.

“Not to-day, sonny; not to-day,” answered his father decisively. “You can go out any day; you’re not a hard-worked Civil Servant. Besides, we shall hardly get anything; we’re only going just for the sake of the ride. Where’s Mona?” he added. “Late, as usual?”

“Oh yes. We needn’t wait for her.”

Well that they did not, for breakfast was nearly over when she sailed in, bringing with her – surprise; for she was clad in a riding habit.

“Hallo, young woman! What’s the meaning of this? Going to ride into Doppersdorp to church?” sang out Suffield.

“Not to-day, Charlie. I’m going to see you and Mr Musgrave shoot a buck.”

“Eh!” said Suffield, with a blank stare at Roden.

“Oh, you needn’t look so disappointed, or you might have the civility not to show it. I’m going with you, and that’s all about it,” said Mona, with nonchalant decision, beginning upon her tea.

“Well, upon my word! But we are going into the very dev – er – I mean, all sorts of rough places, right up among the krantzes. Who on earth is going to look after such a superfine young party as you?”

“Wait until somebody is asked to. Meanwhile, I flatter myself I’m old enough and ugly enough to look after myself.”

“Father, you said just now you were only going for the sake of the ride,” struck in the disappointed hopeful.

“Um – yes, did I though? So I did, Frank. I say, though. Did you ever hear the saying, that small boys should be seen and not heard? If you’re ready, Musgrave, we’ll go round and see about the horses.” Under which somewhat cowardly expedient Suffield rose to effect a timely retreat. “By the way, what are you going to ride, Miss Independence?” he added, turning on the threshold.

“Oh, I’ve arranged all that,” replied Mona, indifferently.

And she had. When they reached the stable they found the ragged Hottentot groom already placing a side-saddle upon one of the horses, a steady-going sure-footed bay.

Now, Roden Musgrave was a real sportsman; which, for present purposes, may be taken to mean that, whatever might be lovely woman’s place, in his opinion it was not out buck-shooting among more or less dangerous slopes and crags. Nevertheless, when Mona’s glance had rested momentarily upon his face as she made her surprising announcement, he flattered himself that he had done nothing to show his real opinion. Nor had he, actively, but there was not the slightest sign of brightening at the news, such as would have lit up the countenance of, say, Lambert, in like case. And this she, for her part, did not fail to note.

It was a lovely morning as they rode forth along the base of the great sweeping slopes, terraced at intervals with buttresses of cliff. The air was as clear and exhilarating as wine, and the sky one vivid, radiant, azure vault. High overhead a white fleecy cloud or two soared around a craggy peak.

“Isn’t it a day?” cried Mona, half breathlessly, as they pulled up to a walk, after a long canter over the nearly level plain. “Grace thinks we are an out-and-out sinful trio.”

“So we are, Miss Ridsdale,” said Roden. “But you’re the worst. Woman – lovely woman – is nothing if not devout. Now, with Suffield and myself it doesn’t matter. We are the unregenerate and brutal sex.”

“Well it isn’t our fault, anyway,” said Suffield. “We are Church of England, and that persuasion is not represented in Doppersdorp. And, at any rate, it’s better to be doing something rational on Sunday than to sit twirling one’s thumbs and yawning, and smoking too many pipes all day because it is Sunday.”

“Why don’t you agitate for a church, then?” asked Roden.

“Oh, the bishop and the dean are too hard at it, fighting out their battle royal in Grahamstown, to spare time to attend to us. There’s a Methodist meeting-house in Doppersdorp and a Catholic chapel, as well as the Dutch Reformed church, but we are left to slide.”

“Have you been to the Catholic church, Mr Musgrave?” said Mona. “I go there sometimes, though I always have to fight Grace before and after on the subject. But I don’t see why I shouldn’t go. I like it.”

“That surely should be justification enough.”

“Don’t put on that nasty, cynical tone when I want you to talk quite nicely.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“I’m not going to pay you the compliment you’re fishing for. What were we talking about? Oh, I know. Isn’t Father O’Driscoll a dear old man?”

“I suppose so, if that means something in his favour.”

“That is just like you,” said Mona, half angrily. “Why don’t you agree with me cordially instead of in that half-hearted way, especially as you and he have become such friends? They are already saying in Doppersdorp that you will soon turn Catholic.”

“One might ‘turn’ worse. But Doppersdorp, as not infrequently happens, is wide of the mark. When the old man and I make an evening of it our conversation is not of faith, but of works. We talk about fishing.”

“What? Always?”

“Always. Don’t you know that the votary of the fly when, after long abstinence, he runs against another votary of the fly, takes a fresh lease of life. Now, Father O’Driscoll and myself are both such votaries, the only two here. Wherefore, when we get together, we enthuse upon the subject like anything.”

“It’s refreshing to learn that you can enthuse upon any subject,” Mona rejoined.

“Oh, I can. Wait till we get up yonder among the rhybok.”

“This way,” cut in Suffield, striking into a by-track. “We must call in at Stoffel Van Wyk’s. That long berg at the back of his place is first-rate for rhybok.”

“Most we?” expostulated Mona. “But we shall have to drink bad coffee.”

“Well, the berry as there distilled is not first-rate.”

“And try and make conversation with the vrouw?”

“That too.”

“Well, don’t let’s go.”

“Mona, are you in command of this expedition, or am I? The course I prescribe is essential to its success. Hallo! Jump off, Musgrave! There’s a shot!”

They had turned off from the open plain now, and were riding through a narrow poort, or defile, which opened soon into another hill-encircled hollow. The passage was overhung with rugged cliffs, in which ere and there a stray euphorbia or a cactus had found root. Up a well-nigh perpendicular rock-face, sprawling, shambling like a tarantula on a wall, a huge male baboon was making his way. He must have been quite two hundred yards distant, and was looking over his shoulder at his natural enemies, the while straining every muscle to gain the top of the cliff.

Roden’s piece was already at his shoulder. There was a crack, then a dull thud. The baboon relaxed his hold, and with one spasmodic clutch toppled heavily to the earth.

“Good shot!” cried Suffield enthusiastically. “It’s not worth while going to pick him up. I wonder what he’s doing here all alone, though. You don’t often catch an old man baboon napping.”

“Don’t you feel as if you had committed a murder, Mr Musgrave?” said Mona.

“Not especially. On the other hand, I am gratified to find that this old Snider shoots so true. It’s a Government one I borrowed from the store for the occasion.”

“Murder be – um! – somethinged!” said Suffield. “These baboons are the most mischievous schelms out. They have discovered that young lamb is good, the brutes! Sympathy wasted, my dear child.”

But when they reached Stoffel Van Wyk’s farm they found, to Mona’s intense relief, that that typical Boer and all his house were away from home. This they elicited with difficulty between the savage bayings of four or five great ugly bullet-headed dogs, which could hardly be restrained from assailing the new arrivals by the Kaffir servant who gave the information.

“We’ll go on at once, then, Musgrave,” said Suffield. “Stoffel’s a very decent fellow, and won’t mind us shooting on his farm; though, of course, we had to call at the house as a matter of civility.”

The place for which they were bound was a long, flat-topped mountain, whose summit, belted round with a wall of cliff, was only to be gained here and there where the rock had yawned away into a deep gully. It was along the slopes at the base of the rocks that bucks were likely to be put up.

“We’ll leave the horses here with Piet,” said Suffield, “and steal up quietly and look over that ridge of rocks under the krantz. We’ll most likely get a shot.”

The ridge indicated sloped away at right angles from the face of a tall cliff. It was the very perfection of a place for a stalk. Dismounting, they turned over their horses to the “after-rider.”

“Hold hard, Miss Ridsdale. Don’t be in such a hurry,” whispered Roden warningly. “If you chance to dislodge so much as a pebble, the bucks down there’ll hear it, if there are any.”

Mona, who was all eagerness and excitement, took the hint. But a riding habit is not the most adaptable of garments for stalking purposes, and she was conscious of more than one look, half of warning, half of vexation, on the part of her male companions daring the advance.

Lying flat on their faces they peered over the ridge, and their patience was rewarded. The ground sloped abruptly down for about a hundred feet, forming, with the jutting elbow of the cliff, a snug grassy hoek, or corner. Here among boulders and fragments of rock scattered about, were seven rhybok, two rams and five ewes.

They had been grazing; some were so yet, but others had thrown up their heads, and were listening intently.

They were barely two hundred yards distant. Quiet, cautious as had been the advance, their keen ears must have heard something. They stood motionless, gazing in the direction of the threatened peril, their ringed black horns and prominent eyes plainly distinguishable to the stalkers. One, a fine large ram, seemingly the leader of the herd, had already begun to move uneasily.

“Take the two rams as they stand,” whispered Suffield.

Crash! Then a long reverberating roar rolls back in thunder from the base of the cliff. Away go the bucks like lightning, leaving one of their number kicking upon the ground. This has fallen to Roden’s weapon; the other, the big ram, is apparently unscathed.

“I’ll swear he’s hit!” cried Suffield, in excitement and vexation. “Look at him, Musgrave. Isn’t he going groggily?”

Roden shaded his eyes to look after the leader of the herd, whose bounding form was fast receding into distance.

“Yes, he’s hit,” he said decidedly. “A fine buck too. He may run for miles with a pound of lead in him, though. They’re tough as copper-wire. We’d better sing out to Piet to bring on the horses, and try and keep him in sight anyhow.”

The fleeing bucks had now become mere specks, as, their stampede in no wise abated, they went bounding down the mountain-side more than half a mile away.

“Look there, Suffield,” went on Roden, still shading his eyes; “there are only the five ewes. Your ram’s hit, and can’t keep up, or else has split off of his own accord. Anyway, he’s hit, and will probably lie up somewhat under the krantz.”

Away they went, right along the base of the iron wall, which seemed to girdle the mountain for miles. And here Mona’s boast about being able to take care of herself was put to a very real and practical test, for the ground was rough and stony and the slope here and there dangerously steep.

Suddenly an animal sprang up, right in front of them, apparently out of the very rocks, at about a hundred yards.

“That’s him!” shouted Suffield, skimming past his companions, bent on diminishing the distance to get in a final shot. But this was not so easy, for a full-grown rhybok ram, even when wounded, is first-rate at; and this one was no exception to the rule, for he went so well and dodged so craftily behind every stone and tuft of grass that his pursuer would have to shoot him from the saddle, or not at all. Suffield, realising this, opened fire hastily, and of course missed clean.

“We’ve lost him!” he growled, making no effort to continue the pursuit.

But the quarry here suddenly altered its tactics. Possibly suspecting danger in front, it turned suddenly, and doubling, shot down the steep slope at lightning speed, and at right angles to its former course. There rang out a heavy report at some little distance behind. The buck leaped high in the air, then, turning a couple of somersaults, rolled a score of yards farther, and lay stone dead.

“By Jove, Musgrave, but you can shoot!” cried Suffield, as they met over the quarry. “Three to four hundred yards, and going like an express train. Allamaagtag! I grudge you that shot.”

“He’s yours, anyhow. First blood, you know.”

They examined the animal. Roden’s ball had drilled clean through the centre of the heart, but the first wound would have sickened anything less tenacious of life. The bullet had struck far back in the flank, passing through the animal’s body. Leaving the after-rider to perform the necessary rites and load up the buck upon his horse, together with the first one, which was already there, they moved up to a snug corner under the rocks for lunch.

“We haven’t done badly so far,” quoth Suffield, with a sandwich in one hand and a flask in the other.

“We must get one more,” said Roden, “or rather, you must. That’ll exactly ‘tie’ the shoot; one and a half apiece.”

“Well, and have I been so dreadfully in the way, Mr Musgrave?” said Mona.

“I am not aware that I ever predicted that contingency, Miss Ridsdale.”

“Not in words, perhaps; but you looked so glum when I announced my intention of coming, that, like the pack of cards instead of the Testament in the wicked conscript’s pocket, which turned the fatal bullet, it did just as well.”

“Did I? If so, it was inadvertently. But I daresay my conscience was pricking me in advance over that baboon I was destined to murder. That might account for it.”

The fact was that, however dubious had been his reception of the said announcement, Roden was in his heart of hearts conscious that the speaker’s presence with them that day, so far from being a drawback, had constituted rather an attraction than otherwise. Indeed, he was surprised to find how much so. When Mona Ridsdale chose to lay herself out to make the most of herself, she did not do it by halves. A good horsewoman, she looked splendidly well in the saddle, the well-fitting riding habit setting off the curves and proportions of her magnificent figure to every advantage. Moreover, she was in bright spirits, and to-day had laid herself out to be thoroughly companionable, and, to do her justice, had well succeeded; and more than once, when the pace had been too great, or the ground too rough, or a dark, haunting terror of her saddle turning had smote her, she had manfully repressed any word or look which might be construed into an appeal for consideration or aid. She had even been successful beyond her hopes, for Roden, silently observant, had not suffered this to escape him, though manifesting no sign thereof. So the trio, as they sat there under the cliff, lunching upon sandwiches in true sportsmanlike fashion, with a vast panorama of mountain and plain, craggy, turret-like summit, and bold, sweeping, grassy slope, spread out beneath and around for fifty miles on either hand, and the fresh, bracing breeze of seven thousand feet above sea-level tempering the golden and glowing sunshine which enveloped them, felt on excellent terms with each other and all the world.

“The plan now,” said Suffield, when they had taken it easy long enough, “will be to separate and go right round the berg. It is lying under the krantz we shall find the bucks, if anywhere.”

“Where does my part come in in that little scheme, Charlie?” said Mona. “Who am I to inflict myself upon?”

“Upon me, of course,” said Roden.

She shot a rapid glance at him as though to see if he were in earnest, and her heart beat quick. This time she was sure that no dubiousness lurked beneath his tone.

“Just as you like,” she rejoined; for her, quite subduedly. Then Piet, the after-rider, having received his instructions – viz., to start off homeward with the two bucks already slain – they separated accordingly.

Chapter Nine.

“Love that is First and Last…”