CHAPTER XVII
THE TWELFTH OF FEBRUARY
John soon settled down into the routine of camp life in Pretoria,
which, after one became accustomed to it, was not so disagreeable as
might have been expected, and possessed, at any rate, the merit of
novelty. Although he was an officer of the army, having several horses
to ride and his services not being otherwise required, John preferred,
on the whole, to enrol himself in the corps of mounted volunteers,
known as the Pretoria Carbineers. This, in the humble capacity of a
sergeant, he obtained leave to do from the officer commanding the
troops. He was an active man, and his duties in connection with the
corps kept him fully employed during most of the day, and sometimes,
when there was outpost duty to be done, during a good part of the
night too. For the rest, whenever he returned to the cart--by which he
had stipulated he should be allowed to sleep in order to protect Jess
in case of any danger--he always found her ready to greet him, and
every little preparation made for his comfort that was possible under
the circumstances. Indeed, as time went on, they thought it more
convenient to set up their own little mess instead of sharing that of
their friends. So every day they used to sit down to breakfast and
dine together at a little table contrived out of a packing-case, and
placed under an extemporised tent, for all the world like a young
couple picnicking on their honeymoon. Of course, the situation was
very irksome in a way, but it is not to be denied that it had a charm
of its own.
To begin with, once thoroughly known, Jess was one of the most
delightful companions possible to a man like John Niel. Never, till
this long /tete-a-tete/ at Pretoria, had he guessed how powerful and
original was her mind, or how witty she could be when she liked. There
was a fund of dry and suggestive humour about her, which, although it
would no more bear being written down than champagne will bear
standing in a tumbler, was very pleasant to listen to, more especially
as John soon discovered that he was the only person so privileged. Her
friends and relations had never suspected that Jess was humorous.
Another thing which struck him as time went on, was that she was
growing quite handsome. She had been very pale and thin when he
reached Pretoria, but before a month was over she had become,
comparatively speaking, stout, which was an enormous gain to her
appearance. Her pale face, too, gathered a faint tinge of colour that
came and went capriciously, like star-light on the water, and her
beautiful eyes grew deeper and more beautiful than ever.
"Who would ever have thought that it was the same girl!" said Mrs.
Neville to him, holding up her hands as she watched Jess solemnly
surveying a half-cooked mutton chop. "Why, she used to be such a poor
creature, and now she's quite a fine woman. And that with this life,
too, which is wearing me to a shadow and has half-killed my dear
daughter."
"I suppose it is being in the open air," said John, it having never
occurred to him that the medicine that was doing Jess so much good
might be happiness. But so it was. After her first struggles came a
lull, and then an idea. Why should she not enjoy his society while she
could? He had been thrown into her way through no wish of hers. She
had no desire to wean him from Bessie; or, if she had the desire, it
was one which she was far too honourable a woman to entertain. He was
perfectly innocent of the whole story; to him she was the young lady
who happened to be the sister of the woman he was going to marry, that
was all. Why should she not pluck her innocent roses whilst she might?
Jess forgot that the rose is a flower with a dangerous perfume, and
one that is apt to confuse the senses and turn the head. So she gave
herself full swing, and for some weeks went nearer to knowing what
happiness really meant than she ever had before. What a wonderful
thing is the love of a woman in its simplicity and strength, and how
it gilds all the poor and common things of life and even finds a joy
in service! The prouder the woman the more delight does she extract
from her self-abasement before her idol. Only not many women can love
like Jess, and when they do almost invariably they make some fatal
mistake, whereby the wealth of their affection is wasted, or, worse
still, becomes a source of misery or shame to themselves and others.
It was after they had been incarcerated in Pretoria for a month that a
bright idea occurred to John. About a quarter of a mile from the
outskirts of the camp stood a little house known, probably on account
of its diminutive size, as "The Palatial." This cottage, like almost
every other house in Pretoria, had been abandoned to its fate, its
owner, as it happened, being away from the town. One day, in the
course of a walk, John and Jess crossed the little bridge that spanned
the /sluit/ and went in to inspect the place. Passing down a path
lined on either side with young blue gums, they reached the little
tin-roofed cottage. It consisted of two rooms--a bedroom and a good-
sized sitting-room, in which still stood a table and a few chairs,
with a stable and a kitchen at the back. They went in, sat down by the
open door and looked out. The garden of the cottage sloped down
towards a valley, on the farther side of which rose a wooded hill. To
the right, too, was a hill clothed in deep green bush. The grounds
themselves were planted with vines, just now loaded with bunches of
ripening grapes, and surrounded by a beautiful hedge of monthly roses
that formed a blaze of bloom. Near the house, too, was a bed of double
roses, some of them exceedingly lovely, and all flowering with a
profusion unknown in this country. Altogether it was a delightful
spot, and, after the noise and glare of the camp, seemed a perfect
heaven. So they sat there and talked a great deal about the farm and
old Silas Croft and a little about Bessie.
"This /is/ nice," said Jess presently, putting her hands behind her
head and looking out at the bush beyond.
"Yes," said John. "I say, I've got a notion. I vote we take up our
quarters here--during the day, I mean. Of course we shall have to
sleep in camp, but we might eat here, you know, and you could sit here
all day; it would be as safe as a church, for those Boers will never
try to storm the town, I am sure of that."
Jess reflected, and soon came to the conclusion that it would be a
charming plan. Accordingly, next day she set to work and made the
place as clean and tidy as circumstances would allow, and they
commenced house-keeping.
The upshot of this arrangement was that they were thrown more together
even than before. Meanwhile the siege dragged its slow length along.
No news whatever reached the town from outside, but this did not
trouble the inhabitants very much, as they were sure that Colley was
advancing to their relief, and even got up sweep-stakes as to the date
of his arrival. Now and then a sortie took place, but, as the results
attained were very small, and were not, on the whole, creditable to
our arms, perhaps the less said about them the better. John, of
course, went out on these occasions, and then Jess would endure
agonies that were all the worse because she was forced to conceal
them. She lived in constant terror lest he should be among the killed.
However, nothing happened to him, and things went on as usual till the
twelfth of February, when an attack was made on a place called the Red
House Kraal, which was occupied by Boers near a spot known as the Six-
mile Spruit.
The force, which was a mixed one, left Pretoria before daybreak, and
John went with it. He was rather surprised when, on going to the cart
in which Jess slept, to get some little thing before saddling up, he
found her sitting on the box in the night dews, a cup of hot coffee
which she had prepared for him in her hand.
"What do you mean by this, Jess?" he asked sharply. "I will not have
you getting up in the middle of the night to make coffee for me."
"I have not got up," she answered quietly; "I have not been to bed."
"That makes matters worse," he exclaimed; but, nevertheless, he drank
the coffee and was glad of it, while she sat on the box and watched
him.
"Put on your shawl and wrap something over your head," he said, "the
dew will soak you through. Look, your hair is all wet."
Presently she spoke. "I wish you would do something for me, John," for
she called him John now. "Will you promise?"
"How like a woman," he said, "to ask one to promise a thing without
saying what it is."
"I want you to promise for Bessie's sake, John."
"Well, what is it, Jess?"
"Not to go on this sortie. You know you can easily get out of it if
you like."
He laughed. "You little silly, why not?"
"Oh, I don't know. Don't laugh at me because I am nervous. I am afraid
that--that something might happen to you."
"Well," he remarked consolingly, "every bullet has its billet, and if
it does I don't see that it can be helped."
"Think of Bessie," she said again.
"Look here, Jess," he answered testily, "what is the good of trying to
take the heart out of a fellow like this? If I am going to be shot I
can't help it, and I am not going to show the white feather, even for
Bessie's sake; so there you are, and now I must be off."
"You are quite right, John," she said quietly. "I should not have
liked to hear you say anything different, but I could not help
speaking. Good-bye, John; God bless you!" and she stretched out her
hand, which he took, and went.
"Upon my word, she has given me quite a turn," reflected John to
himself, as the troop crept on through the white mists of dawn. "I
suppose she thinks that I am going to be plugged. Perhaps I am! I
wonder how Bessie would take it. She would be awfully cut up, but I
expect that she would get over it pretty soon. Now I don't think that
Jess would shake off a thing of that sort in a hurry. That is just the
difference between the two; the one is all flower and the other is all
root."
Then he fell to wondering how Bessie was, and what she was doing, and
if she missed him as much as he missed her, and so on, till his mind
came back to Jess, and he reflected what a charming companion she was,
and how thoughtful and kind, and breathed a secret hope that she would
continue to live with them after they were married. Unconsciously they
had arrived at that point of intimacy, innocent in itself, when two
people become absolutely necessary to each other's daily life. Indeed,
Jess had travelled a long way farther, but of this John was of course
ignorant. He was still at the former stage, and was not himself aware
how large a proportion of his daily thoughts were occupied by this
dark-eyed girl or how completely her personality overshadowed him. He
only knew that she had the knack of making him feel thoroughly happy
in her company. When he was talking to her, or even sitting silently
by her, he became aware of a sensation of restfulness and reliance
that he had never before experienced in the society of a woman. Of
course to a large extent this was the natural homage of the weaker
nature to the stronger, but it was also something more. It was a
shadow of the utter sympathy and complete accord that is the surest
sign of the presence of the highest forms of affection, which, when it
accompanies the passion of men and women, as it sometimes though
rarely does, being more often to be found in perfection in those
relations from which the element of sexuality is excluded, raises it
almost above the level of the earth. For the love where that sympathy
exists, whether it is between mother and son, husband and wife, or
those who, whilst desiring it, have no hope of that relationship, is
an undying love, and will endure till the night of Time has swallowed
all things.
Meanwhile, as John reflected, the force to which he was attached was
moving into action, and soon he found it necessary to come down to the
unpleasantly practical details of Boer warfare. More particularly did
this come home to his mind when, shortly afterwards, the man next to
him was shot dead, and a little later he himself was slightly wounded
by a bullet which passed between the saddle and his thigh. Into the
details of the fight that ensued it is not necessary to enter here.
They were, if anything, more discreditable than most of the episodes
of that unhappy war in which the holding of Potchefstroom, Lydenburg,
Rustenburg, and Wakkerstroom are the only bright spots. Suffice it to
say that they ended in something very like an utter rout of the
English at the hands of a much inferior force, and that, a few hours
after he had started, the ambulance being left in the hands of the
Boers, John found himself on the return road to Pretoria, with a
severely wounded man behind his saddle, who, as they went painfully
along, mingled curses of shame and fury with his own. Meanwhile
exaggerated accounts of the English defeat had reached the town, and,
amongst other things, it was said that Captain Niel had been shot
dead. One man who came in stated that he saw him fall, and that he was
shot through the head. This Mrs. Neville heard with her own ears, and,
greatly shocked, started to communicate the intelligence to Jess.
As soon as it was daylight, as was customary with her, Jess had gone
over to the little house which she and John occupied, "The Palatial,"
as it was called ironically, and settled herself there for the day.
First she tried to work and could not, so she took a book that she had
brought with her and began to read, but it was a failure also. Her
eyes would wander from the page and her ears strain to catch the
distant booming of the big guns that came from time to time floating
across the hills. The fact of the matter was that the poor girl was
the victim of a presentiment that something was going to happen to
John. Most people of imaginative mind have suffered from this kind of
thing at one time or other in their lives, and have lived to see the
folly of it; and there was more in the circumstances of the present
case to excuse indulgence in the luxury of presentiments than as
usual. Indeed, as it happened, she was not far out--only a sixteenth
of an inch or so--for John was very /nearly/ killed.
Not finding Jess in camp, Mrs. Neville made her way across to "The
Palatial," where she knew the girl sat, crying as she went, at the
thought of the news that she had to communicate, for the good soul had
grown very fond of John Niel. Jess, with that acute sense of hearing
which often accompanies nervous excitement, caught the sound of the
little gate at the bottom of the garden almost before her visitor had
passed through it, and ran round the corner of the house to see who
was there.
One glance at Mrs. Neville's tear-stained face was enough for her. She
knew what was coming, and clasped at one of the young blue gum trees
that grew along the path to prevent herself from falling.
"What is it?" she said faintly. "Is he dead?"
"Yes, my dear, yes; shot through the head, they say."
Jess made no answer, but clung to the sapling, feeling as though she
were going to die herself, and faintly hoping that she might do so.
Her eyes wandered vaguely from the face of the messenger of evil,
first up to the sky, then down to the cropped and trodden veldt. Past
the gate of "The Palatial" garden ran a road, which, as it happened,
was a short cut from the scene of the fight, and down this road came
four Kafirs and half-castes, bearing something on a stretcher, behind
which rode three or four carbineers. A coat was thrown over the face
of the form on the stretcher, but its legs were visible. They were
booted and spurred, and the feet fell apart in that peculiarly lax and
helpless way of which there is no possibility of mistaking the
meaning.
"/Look!/" she said, pointing.
"Ah, poor man, poor man!" said Mrs. Neville, "they are bringing him
here to lay him out."
Then Jess's beautiful eyes closed, and down she went with the bending
tree. Presently the sapling snapped, and she fell senseless with a
little cry, and as she fell the men with the corpse passed on.
Two minutes afterwards, John Niel, having heard the rumour of his own
death on arrival at the camp, and greatly fearing lest it should have
reached Jess's ears, cantered up hurriedly, and, dismounting as well
as his wound would allow, limped up the garden path.
"Great heavens, Captain Niel!" exclaimed Mrs. Neville, looking up;
"why--we thought that you were dead!"
"And that is what you have been telling her, I suppose," he said
sternly, glancing at the pale and deathlike face; "you might have
waited till you were sure. Poor girl! it must have given her a turn!"
and, stooping down, he placed his arms under Jess, and, lifting her
with some difficulty, staggered to the house, where he laid her down
upon the table and, assisted by Mrs. Neville, began to do all in his
power to revive her. So obstinate was her faint, however, that their
efforts were unavailing, and at last Mrs. Neville started for the camp
to get some brandy, leaving him to go on rubbing her hands and
sprinkling water on her face.
The good lady had not been gone more than two or three minutes when
Jess suddenly opened her eyes and sat up, slipping her feet to the
ground. Her eyes fell upon John and dilated with wonder; he thought
that she was about to faint again, for even her lips blanched, and she
began to shake and tremble all over in the extremity of her agitation.
"Jess, Jess," he said, "for God's sake don't look like that, you
frighten me!"
"I thought you were--I thought you were----" she said slowly, then
suddenly burst into a passion of tears and fell forward upon his
breast and lay there sobbing her heart out, her brown curls resting
against his face.
It was an awkward and a most moving position. John was only a man, and
the spectacle of this strange woman, to whom he had lately grown so
much attached, plunged into intense emotion, awakened, apparently, by
anxiety about his fate, stirred him very deeply--as it would have
stirred anybody. Indeed, it struck some chord in him for which he
could not quite account, and its echoes charmed and yet frightened
him. What did it mean?
"Jess, dear Jess, pray stop; I can't bear to see you cry so," he said
at last.
She lifted her head from his shoulder and stood looking at him, her
hand resting on the edge of the table behind her. Her face was wet
with tears and looked like a dew-washed lily, and her beautiful eyes
were alight with a flame that he had never seen in the eyes of woman
before. She said nothing, but her whole face was more eloquent than
any words, for there are times when the features can convey a message
in that language of their own which is more suitable than any tongue
we talk. There she stood, her breast heaving with emotion as the sea
heaves when the fierceness of the storm has passed--a very incarnation
of the intensest love of woman. And as she stood something seemed to
pass before her eyes and blind her; a spirit took possession of her
that absorbed all her doubts and fears, and she gave way to a force
that was of her and yet compelled her, as, when the wind blows, the
sails compel a ship. Then, for the first time, where her love was
concerned, she put out all her strength. She knew, and had always
known, that she could master him, and force him to regard her as she
regarded him, did she but choose. How she knew it she could not say,
but it was so. Now she yielded to an unconquerable impulse and chose.
She said nothing, she did not even move, she only looked at him.
"Why were you in such a fright about me?" he stammered.
She did not answer, but kept her eyes upon his face, and it seemed to
John as though power flowed from them; for, while she looked, he felt
the change come. Everything melted away before the almost spiritual
intensity of her gaze. Bessie, honour, his engagement--all were
forgotten; the smouldering embers broke into flame, and he knew that
he loved this woman as he had never loved any living creature before--
that he loved her even as she loved him. Strong man as he was, he
shook like a leaf before her.
"Jess," he said hoarsely, "God forgive me! I love you!" and he bent
forward to kiss her.
She lifted her face towards him, then suddenly changed her mind, and
laid her hand upon his breast.
"You forget," she said almost solemnly, "you are going to marry
Bessie."
Crushed by a deep sense of shame, and by a knowledge of the calamity
that had overtaken him, John turned and limped from the house.
