Flower o' the Peach

Margaret smiled slowly and he made a quick note in his book.

"I ought to say, perhaps," he went on, looking up when he had finished writing, "that the information I am asking for relates to a – a person, who is wanted by the police on a charge of sedition and incitement to commit a breach of the peace. You were seen on the afternoon in question in the company of that – person, Miss Harding; and I believe – I believe you can help us to lay hands on him."

"Is it Samson?" inquired Ford, raising his head. "I 've always had my suspicions of Samson."

"Oh, Mr. Ford," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, pained.

"It 's not Mr. Samson," said the sub-inspector calmly; "and it is not any business of yours, Ford."

"Oh, yes; it is," answered Ford. "Because if it isn't Samson it must be me – unless it 's Jakes. You seem to think we see a good deal of company here, Van Zyl."

"I don't think anything at all," retorted the sub-inspector stiffly; "and I 've nothing to say to you. My business is with Miss Harding, and you won't help her by making a nuisance of yourself."

"Eh?" Ford sat up suddenly. "What's that – won't help her? Are you trying to frighten Miss Harding by suggesting that you can use any sort of compulsion to her? Because, if that 's your idea, you 'd better look out what you 're doing."

"I 'm not responsible to you, Ford," replied Van Zyl shortly. "You can hold your tongue now. Miss Harding understands well enough what I mean."

"Oh, yes," said Margaret, as Ford looked towards her. "I understand, but I don't care."

It was taking its own strange course, but she was not concerned to deflect it or make it run more directly. She conserved her powers for the moment when the thing would be told, and Ford's indignant championship arrested brusquely by the mere name of her offense. Presently Van Zyl would cease to speak of "a person" and come out with the plain word, "Kafir." How he had gained his information she did not attempt to guess; but that he had the means to break her there was no doubting. She would answer no questions; she was determined upon that; but now that the hour of revelation was come, she would do nothing to fog it. It should pass and be done with and leave her with its consequences clear to weigh and abide.

She made a motion of the hand that hung over the back of her chair to Ford, as though she would hush him. He was puzzled and looked it, but subsided provisionally against the end of the couch again.

Van Zyl eased his shoulders in their bondage of slings and straps with a practised shrug, crossed one booted leg over the other and faced her afresh.

"Now, Miss Harding, you see that I am not speaking by guess; and it 's for you to say whether you will have the rest of this here or in private. I 'm anxious to give you every possible consideration."

"I shan't answer any questions," said Margaret, "and I decline any privacy, Mr. Van Zyl."

"No? Very well. I must do my duty as best I can," replied the sub-inspector, with official resignation. He referred to a back page of his note-book perfunctorily.

"On the – th of this month, man discovered weeping and disorderly on the platform at Zeekoe Siding, stated to Corporal Simms that he had been robbed of five hundred pounds by confidence trick on down train. Under examination, varied the sum, and finally adhered to figure of forty-three pounds odd, which he alleged was part of fifty pounds he had received from the – person in whose company he had seen you."

"Ah!" Margaret found herself smiling absently at the memory of Boy Bailey making his bargain on the top of the dam wall, with his bare unbeautiful feet fidgeting in the grass.

Sub-inspector Van Zyl surveyed her with his impersonal stare and continued:

"He gave the name of Claude Richmond, but was afterwards identified as one Noah Bailey, alias Boy Bailey, alias Spotted Dog, etc., wanted by the police in connection with – a certain affair. On being charged, feigned to fall in a fit but came to under treatment, and made a certain communication, which was transmitted to me as bearing upon my search for this – person. The communication was detailed, Miss Harding, and he stood to it under a searching examination, and satisfied us that we were getting the truth out of him. Acting upon the information thus received, I next called upon you."

He looked up. "You see what I have to go upon?" he said. "Since you know yourself what took place on the afternoon about which I asked you, you can understand that the police require your assistance. Do you still refuse to answer me, Miss Harding?"

"Of course," replied Margaret.

Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would spare her no longer. She watched his smooth, tanned face with nervous trepidation.

He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned forward with the note-book in his hand, his forefinger between the pages to keep the place.

"You do?" he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp note. Ford sat up again, watchful and angry. "You refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss Harding, we 'll have to make an end of this."

Ford struck in crisply. "Good idea," he said. "I suggest Miss Harding might quit the room for that purpose, and leave you to explain to me what the devil you mean by this."

Van Zyl turned on him quickly. "You look out," he said. "If I 've got to arrest you to shut your mouth, I 'll do it – and quick too."

"Why not?" demanded Ford. "That 'll be as good a way for you to get the lesson you need as any other."

"You'll get a lesson," began Van Zyl, making as though to rise and put his threat into action.

"Oh, please," cried Margaret; "none of this is necessary. Sit down, Mr. Ford; please sit down and listen. Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak out and you will be free from further trouble, I 'm sure."

"I 've taken too much trouble as it is," retorted the sub-inspector. "I 'll have no more of it."

He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not at any moment doffed his formality of demeanor, the small scene had lit a spark in him and he was newly formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the narrow smile with which a man of his type masks a rising temper, but so far yielded to Margaret's urgency as to lean back upon one elbow.

"You 'll be sorry for all this presently," Margaret said to him warningly.

"Very soon, in fact," added the sub-inspector, "if he repeats the offense."

He settled himself again on his chair, confronting Margaret.

"Now, Miss Harding," lie resumed briskly. "Out with it? You admit you were there, eh?"

"Oh, no," said Margaret. "You 're asking questions again, Mr. Van Zyl."

"And I 'm going to have an answer, too," he replied zestfully. "You 've got a wrong idea entirely of what 's before you. You can still have this in private, if you like; but here or elsewhere, you 'll speak or out comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be – sharp?"

"I 've nothing to tell you," she maintained.

His blond, neat face hardened.

"Haven't you, though. We'll see? You know a Kafir calling himself – " he made a lightning reference to his book – "calling himself Kamis?"

She made no answer.

"You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent the afternoon of the – th, was n't it? Under the wall of the dam down yonder – yes? You 've met him more than once, and always alone?"

She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her faintly-smiling indifference of countenance, but her face felt stiff and cold, and her smile as though it sagged to a blatant grin. She did not glance across to see how Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become impossible.

"You see?" There was a restrained triumph in Van Zyl's voice. "We know more than you think, young lady – and more still. You won't answer questions, won't you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and then put up this kind of bluff."

There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his feet, with the hectic brilliant on each cheek.

"You liar," he cried. "You filthy Dutch liar."

Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile parted his squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. At his word, she had made a small involuntary movement as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had let it fall again.

"You may decide to answer that, perhaps," suggested the sub-inspector. "Do you deny that he kissed you?"

There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the sound of his breathing filled the interval. The fingers of Margaret's left hand bent and unbent the flap of the envelope destined for the legal uncle, but her mind was far from it and its contents. "You liar," Ford had cried, and it had had a fine sound; even now she had but to rise as though insulted and walk from the room, and his loyalty would endure, unspotted, unquestioning, touchy and quick. She might have done well to choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, and she felt herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, that it must find itself betrayed. The vehemence of the cry was testimony to the faith that gave it utterance.

And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt upon the figure that stood at the back of all this disordered trouble – that of Kamis, remote from their agitated circle, companioning in his solitude with griefs of his own. He came into her mind by way of comparison with the directness and vivid anger of Ford, standing tense and agonized for her reply, with all his honest soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk clothes made apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went to and fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, and his face denied an index to the strong spirit that drove him. He suffered behind blubber lips and a comical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two had nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to which she must now do the peculiar justice that the situation required.

"Let 's have it," urged the sub-inspector. "He kissed you, this nigger did, and you let him? Speak up."

Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: "She held out both her arms to him – wide; and he took hold of her an' hugged her, kissin' her till I couldn't stand the sight any longer. 'You shameless woman!' I shouted" – at that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, and had screamed. "I wish I may die if he did n't kiss her," was the form that kicking finally reduced it to, but they could not kick that out of him. He stood for one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him.

"Well, did he kiss you or didn't he?"

Margaret sighed. "I will tell you that," she said wearily. "Yes, he did – he kissed my hand."

Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. "I thought we 'd get something before we were done," he said, and smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. "You 'd like to apologize, I expect?"

Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere amazement at Margaret's immovable profile.

"Is that true?" he demanded.

Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the wonder of his face.

"Oh, quite," she answered. "Quite true."

His eyes wavered before hers as though he were ashamed and abashed. He put an uncertain hand to his lips.

"I see," he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again upon the couch.

"Well, after that, what 's the sense of keeping anything back?" Van Zyl went on confidently. "You see what comes of standing out against the police? Now, what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? Where do you send to let him know he 's to come and see you?"

"No," said Margaret. "It 's no use; I won't tell you any more."

"Oh, yes, you will." Van Zyl felt quite sure of it. He eyed her acutely and decided to venture a shot in the dark. "You 'll tell me all I ask, – d'you hear? I have n't done with you yet. You 've seen him at night, too, when you were supposed to be in bed. You can't deceive me. I 've seen your kind before, plenty of them, and I know the way to deal with them."

His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of that night when Dr. Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. Jakes must have told him, and her protests had been uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at her; in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself.

Van Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike the thickish staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial moments. That voice she would never hear again; impossible for her ever to regain the status of a person in whom the police have no concern.

"You 'll save yourself trouble by speaking up and wasting no time about it," he urged, with the kind of harsh good nature a policeman may use to the offender who provides him with employment. "You 've got to do it, you know. How do you get hold of your nigger-friend when you want him?"

She shook her head without speaking.

"Answer!" he roared suddenly, so that she started in her chair. "What 's the arrangement you 've got with him? None of your airs with me, my girl. Out with it, now – what 's the trick?"

She looked at him affrightedly; he seemed about to spring upon her from his chair and dash at her to wring an answer out of her by force. But from the sofa, where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no sign. Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered a vague moan.

"Wha – what 's this?"

The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his face of a fallen cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes mildly questioning. Margaret saw him with quick relief; the intolerable situation must change in some manner by his arrival.

"I heard – I heard – was it you shouting, Van Zyl?" he inquired, stammeringly, as he came in.

"Yes," replied the sub-inspector, shortly.

"Oh!" Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling mustache. "Whom were you shouting at?" he inquired, after a moment of hesitation.

"I was speaking to her," replied the other impatiently.

The doctor followed the movement of his hand and the light of his spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly.

"Well." He seemed baffled. "Miss Harding, you mean, eh?"

The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes."

"Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?"

"Yes. You 'll excuse us, but – "

"No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly not. You – you mustn't shout here."

"Look here," began Van Zyl.

The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading lumberingly across the worn carpet.

"Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means – temperature. I – I think you 'd better – yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss Harding."

He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence.

As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness, Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair.

"You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said.

Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too.

"Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any – "

"I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You 're – you 're endangering life – way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs. Jakes, Miss Harding."

"You 'll report me," exclaimed Van Zyl.

"Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I – I call Mr. Ford to witness – "

He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly.

"What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I – I hold you responsible. You 've done this – with your shouting."

Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and painful mouth.

"Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin – and the things. In the study; you know."

"I know." And Mrs. Jakes – so her name was Hester – ran pattering off.

They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously – the doctor had had a fine peremptory moment – and allowing a certain perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features, stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed mind.

"Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?"

Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I shan't complain."

"It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him.

"I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't talk any more till we know what 's happened in there."

Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with no faculty to spare for surprise.

"Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right – thank God. But if it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with the stretcher to carry him up to his room."

"I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away.

"So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor did. I ought to have known – and I did know, really – that he would have taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to him."

She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him, looking down serenely upon him.

"Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked.

Margaret nodded.

"As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and choke you."

She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall, baffled and outraged.

CHAPTER XV

Not the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than increasing years and the memento mori in his chest, could withhold Mr. Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed, razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it. Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place.

He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well up, chest open – what there was of it – and neck swelling over the purity of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate distance.

A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it, who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like – more like – ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police.

A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep, and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt vanished at the bend of the stairs.

"I say; what 's up?" he asked then.

Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered. She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her answer.

"I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her time to collect her thoughts.

"Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the row?"

Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut.

"I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential intercourse – "I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding."

"Eh? What 's that?"

Old Mr. Samson would speak as though he were addressing a numerous company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation. She made hushing noises.

"Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes."

"No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about it, – I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to him."

"Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl to send for people like this?"

"It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So – "

Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a movement of lively impatience.

"Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it – way you 're telling it. Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?"

It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His immobility and silence were agonizing to her.

"So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr. Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, isn't it?"

Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again.