Flower o' the Peach

"You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'? There 's no doubt about that?"

"If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot – those were her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack – he was so horrified."

"Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?"

"The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before."

Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair.

"It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad turn after a month or so and – and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor little bally fool."

"I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm – I 'm disgusted as well. Any woman would be."

"Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she 'll be sure to get lots of that, now."

It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful, he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed him. But – and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear – the Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs. Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the administration and reception of kisses, had seen none.

The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow, after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted.

This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from his staring to obey it.

Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not varied for years.

"A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said.

"Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her. "I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?"

"To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting – did he say – ?"

Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?"

"Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again. I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, generally so gentlemanly – when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was really sorry for her."

Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs. Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't y' know."

"But they 've got a right to search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes. "And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a cousin once – at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin – but he took a policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly. And my cousin – I always used to call him a cousin – was next door to a teetotaller."

"Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson, seriously. "Still – what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything to you about goin' back home, has she?"

"No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about that, Mr. Samson."

"Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure in."

"Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs. Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds – the doctor's and mine. My view is – she ought to go before the story gets about."

"Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson.

"But Eustace – he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs; he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten."

Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even."

"Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention, as an argument, you know – "

"Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views; anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility."

Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided attention.

Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs. Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's manner – she cowered.

"Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention.

"Good morning, Miss – ah – Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could do.

"Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss Harding. Jolly day, what?"

"Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes, coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes."

"Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and minister she was.

"How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next.

"Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply; "how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all that – eh?"

Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's direction exclusively.

"He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a shock."

"Er – yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch, if I may."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously.

"Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I."

Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating devotedly and would not meet her eye.

She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor.

"Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at once. He said so in the plainest words," she would report, and Jakes would be obliged to take account of it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, at times, of producing from his humble and misty mildness a formidable obstinacy which brooked no opposition. With bent head, he would look up at her out of the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility to volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had done, for he always heard her ominously to an end, he would shake his head slightly and emit a negative. It was rather impressive; there was so little show of force about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it betokened a barrier of refusal that it was useless to hope to surmount. If he were pressed further, he would rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical student days, the doctor had been counted a capable hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient work.

The last time she had pressed him to decree Margaret's departure was in the study, where he sat with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up, as though he contemplated an evening of strenuousness; the bottles and glasses were grouped on the desk at his elbow. Mrs. Jakes had represented vivaciously her sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding and contain the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in the patient's chair, and carefully guided her eyes away from the drinking apparatus. The doctor had uttered his "No" as usual, and she tried, against her better sense, to reason with him.

"There 's me to think of, too," she urged anxiously. "The way she walks past me, Eustace, you 'd think I 'd never had a silk lining in my life."

"No," said the doctor again, with a little genteel cough behind three fingers. "No, we can't. 'T would n't do, Hester. Bringing her out o' bed in her night-gown that night – it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me she 'd got him handy. I might have been there yet for all you did. And as for silk linings, don't you get your shirt out, Hester. She 's all right."

He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at her impatiently with red-rimmed eyes, and she had risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for her to go. She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling.

"Well, I suppose I 've got to suffer in silence, if you say so, Eustace," she observed resignedly. "But it 's as bad as if we kept a shop."

But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be better equipped. It could be made to appear to Jakes that remonstrances were in the air and that there was a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would have to give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the prospects of her enterprise now. She would have been alarmed and astonished if any responsible person had called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she was neither of these things. She was merely creeping under obstacles that she could not climb over, going to work with such means as came to her hand to secure an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in short, and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would have known it no longer.

Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent itself upon her, ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. Samson ample time to escape to the stoep alone and establish himself there. She didn't at all mind being left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady's stiffness and the facial expressions which she tried on, one after the other, in an endeavor to make her countenance match her mind, could be made ineffective by the simple process of ignoring them and her together. By dint of preserving a seeming of contented tranquillity and speaking not one word, it was possible to abash poor Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in impotence behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that commended itself to Margaret and which she employed successfully. Everybody should have a cut at her, she had decided; she would not baulk one of them of the privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could not be permitted to cut and come again.

There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might have made with effect, but none of them occurred to her till Margaret had left the room, departing with an infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved in her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look of calculation overspread her sour little face.

"I didn't notice the silk in that one," she murmured thoughtfully.

Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly edition of the Cape Times to occupy him did not notice her rubber-soled approach till her shadow fell on the page he was reading. He looked up sharply.

"Ah, Miss Harding," he said weakly.

She leaned with her back against the rail, looking down at him in his basket chair, half-smiling.

"You want to speak to me, don't you?" she asked.

Mr. Samson did not understand. "Do I?" he said. "Did I say so? I wonder what it was."

"You didn't say so," Margaret answered, "But I know you do. You wouldn't send me finally to Coventry without saying anything at all, would you?"

"Ah!" He made a weary gesture with one hand, as though he would put the subject from him. "But – but I 'm not sending you to Coventry, my – Miss Harding, I mean. Don't think it, for a moment."

He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, looking up at her slender, civilized figure as she stood before him with a gaze that granted in advance every claim she could make on his consideration and forbearance.

"You know what I mean," said Margaret steadily.

"Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do," he said. "No use fumbling with it, is there? And you're not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows what the other means all right, so what's the use of talking about it?"

Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire that he should spare her and could see no reason for sparing him.

"I want to talk about it, this once," she answered. "You won't have many more chances to tell me what you think of me. I know, of course; but I was n't going to shirk it. I 've disappointed you, have n't I?"

"I don't say so," he replied, with careful gentleness. "I don't say anything of the kind, Miss Harding. You took your own line as you 'd every right to do. If I had – sort of – imagined you were different, you 're not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don't set up for an example to young ladies. Not my line at all, that sort of thing."

"Nothing to say, then?" queried Margaret. He shook his head again. "You know," she added, "I 'm not a bit ashamed – not of anything."

"Of course you 're not," he agreed readily. "You did what you thought was right."

"But you don't think so?" she persisted.

"Miss Harding," replied Mr. Samson; "so far as I can manage it, I don't think about the matter at all."

Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by bursting into tears or laughter, whichever should offer itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes came out, and restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the pair of them in conversation. Circumstances were forever lying in ambush against Mrs. Jakes and deepening the mystery of life by their unexpected poppings up.

She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored Margaret.

"Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go up," she announced.

"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Samson, with alacrity.

Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes' irreconcilable side-face.

"Oh, would you mind if I went first?" she asked. "I rather want to see him."

"By all means," agreed Mr. Samson, with the same alacrity. "I 'm not perishin' to inspect him, you know. Tell him I 'll look him up afterwards."

Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed two or three times. She had matured a plan for declaring that Ford must not be disturbed again after Mr. Samson's visit, and she was fairly sure that Margaret had suspected it. She watched the girl's departure with angry and baffled eyes.

"She 's doing it on purpose," was her thought. "She swings them like that so as to make me hear the frow-frow."

Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with most of the books in the house piled alongside of him on chairs and a bedside table. He was expecting Mr. Samson and sang out a hearty, "Come in; don't stand drumming there," at Margaret's rap on the door.

"It's me," announced Margaret, pushing it open; "not Mr. Samson. He 'll look you up afterwards. Do you mind?"

He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected appearance.

"Of course I don't mind," he said. "It 's awfully good of you. If you 'd shove these books off on the floor, I could offer you a chair."

Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once and set the door wide open.

"The proprieties," she remarked, as she returned to her seat. "Also Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might tempt her beyond her strength."

The room was a large one, with a window to the south full of sunshine and commanding nothing but the eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo and the hard sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued with unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exemplifying Ford's art and challenging the view through the window. She liked vaguely the spareness of the chamber's equipment and its suggestions of uncompromising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with trees distributed among the chief of them, the leather trunks against the wall, the photographs about the dressing table, and the iron bath propped on end under the window, – these trifles seemed all to corroborate the impression she had of their owner. They were so consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sum of him.

"Well," she said, looking at him frankly; "are we going to talk or just exchange civilities?"

"We won't do that," he answered, meeting her look. "Civilities be blowed, anyhow."

"But I 'd like to ask you how you feel, first of all," said Margaret.

"Oh, first-rate. I 'd get up if it wasn't for Jakes," he assured her eagerly. "And I say," he added, with a quick touch of awkwardness, "I hope, really, you haven't been bothering about me, and thinking it was that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. Because it wasn't, you know. I 'd felt something of the kind coming on before lunch. Jakes says that running up stairs may have done it – thing I 'm always forgetting I mustn't do. A chap can't always be thinking of his in'ards, can he?"

"No," agreed Margaret.

She recognized a certain tone of politeness, of civil constraint, in his manner of speaking. He was doing his best to be trivial and ordinary, but she could not be deceived.

"It was rotten, though," he went on quickly. "That brute Van Zyl – look here! I 'm most fearfully sorry I wasn't able to put a stop to his talk, Miss Harding. It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by that fellow."

"It didn't hurt me," said Margaret thoughtfully. "All that is nothing. But are n't we being rather civil, after all?"

He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail against the pillows, with his nervous, sun-tanned hands fidgeting on the coverlet. One button of his pyjamas was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be seen, with the tan stopping short where the collar came and giving place to white skin below.

"Oh, well," he said, in feeble protest. "Why bother?"

"I thought you 'd want to," replied Margaret. "I don't expect you to – to approve, but I did rely on your bothering about it all a little. But if you 'd rather not, that ends the matter."

"I didn't mean it like that," he said.

"Tell me," demanded Margaret; "don't you think I owe you an explanation?"

He considered her gravely for some seconds.

"Yes," he answered finally. "I think you ought to tell me about it."

"I 'm willing to," she said earnestly. "Oh, I wanted to often and often before. But I had to be careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by Mr. Van Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before a court, you know what it means for a native to be arrested by him. He 'takes the kick out of them.' So I was n't really free to speak."

"Perhaps you weren't," granted Ford. "But you were free to keep away from him, and from niggers in general – were n't you?"

"Quite," agreed Margaret. "It is n't niggers in general, though – it 's just this one."

She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge of the bed and her fingers intertwined. She felt that the color had mounted in her face, but she was sedulous to keep her eyes on his.

"He 's a nigger – yes," she said; "black as your hat, and all that. But there 's a difference. This – nigger – I hate that word – was taken away when he was six years old and brought up in England. He was properly educated and he 's a doctor, a real doctor with diplomas and degrees, and he 's come out here to try and help his own people. As yet, he can't even speak Kafir, and he 's had a fearful time ever since he landed. Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. He 's read books and knows a bit about art, and all that; and he 's ever so humble and grateful for just a few words of talk. He 's out there in the veld, all day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I spoke to him and was as friendly as I could be. Don't you see, Mr. Ford? Don't you see?"

He nodded impartially.

"Yes, I see," he answered. "Well?"

"Well, that's all," said Margaret. "Oh, yes – you mean the – the kiss? That was absolutely nothing. I used to make him talk and he 'd been telling me about how hard it was to make a start with his work, and how grateful he was to me for listening to him, and I said there was no need to be so grateful, and that it was a noble thing he had undertaken and that – yes – that I 'd always be proud I 'd been a friend of his. I held out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of shaking it, he kissed it."

"That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?" asked Ford. Margaret nodded. "By the way, who paid him?"