Chapter 2.X. Gregory Rose Has An Idea.
Gregory Rose was in the loft putting it neat. Outside the rain poured; asix months' drought had broken, and the thirsty plain was drenched withwater. What it could not swallow ran off in mad rivulets to the greatsloot, that now foamed like an angry river across the flat. Even thelittle furrow between the farmhouse and the kraals was now a stream,knee-deep, which almost bore away the Kaffer women who crossed it. Ithad rained for twenty-four hours, and still the rain poured on. Thefowls had collected--a melancholy crowd--in and about the wagon-house,and the solitary gander, who alone had survived the six months' want ofwater, walked hither and thither, printing his webbed footmarks on themud, to have them washed out the next instant by the pelting rain,which at eleven o'clock still beat on the walls and roofs with unabatedardour.
Gregory, as he worked in the loft, took no notice of it beyond stuffinga sack into the broken pane to keep it out; and, in spite of the peltand patter, Em's clear voice might be heard through the open trap-doorfrom the dining room, where she sat at work, singing the "Blue Water:"
"And take me away, And take me away, And take me away, To the Blue Water"--
that quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness,and sad, vague yearning when sung over and over dreamily by a woman'svoice as she sits alone at her work.
But Gregory heard neither that nor yet the loud laughter of the Kaffermaids, that every now and again broke through from the kitchen, wherethey joked and worked. Of late Gregory had grown strangely impervious tothe sounds and sights about him. His lease had run out, but Em had said,"Do not renew it; I need one to help me; just stay on." And, she hadadded, "You must not remain in your own little house; live with me; youcan look after my ostriches better so."
And Gregory did not thank her. What difference did it make to him,paying rent or not, living there or not; it was all one. But yet hecame. Em wished that he would still sometimes talk of the strengthof the master-right of man; but Gregory was as one smitten on thecheek-bone.
She might do what she pleased, he would find no fault, had no word tosay. He had forgotten that it is man's right to rule. On that rainymorning he had lighted his pipe at the kitchen fire, and when breakfastwas over stood in the front door watching the water rush down the roadtill the pipe died out in his mouth. Em saw she must do something forhim, and found him a large calico duster. He had sometimes talked ofputting the loft neat, and today she could find nothing else for him todo. So she had the ladder put to the trap-door that he need not go outin the wet, and Gregory with the broom and duster mounted to the loft.Once at work he worked hard. He dusted down the very rafters, andcleaned the broken candle-moulds and bent forks that had stuck in thethatch for twenty years. He placed the black bottles neatly in rows onan old box in the corner, and piled the skins on one another, and sortedthe rubbish in all the boxes; and at eleven o'clock his work was almostdone. He seated himself on the packing-case which had once held Waldo'sbooks, and proceeded to examine the contents of another which he had notyet looked at. It was carelessly nailed down. He loosened one plank, andbegan to lift out various articles of female attire--old-fashioned caps,aprons, dresses with long pointed bodies such as he remembered to haveseen his mother wear when he was a little child.
He shook them out carefully to see there were no moths, and then satdown to fold them up again one by one. They had belonged to Em's mother,and the box, as packed at her death, had stood untouched and forgottenthese long years. She must have been a tall woman, that mother of Em's,for when he stood up to shake out a dress the neck was on a level withhis, and the skirt touched the ground. Gregory laid a nightcap out onhis knee, and began rolling up the strings; but presently his fingersmoved slower and slower, then his chin rested on his breast, and finallythe imploring blue eyes were fixed on the frill abstractedly. When Em'svoice called to him from the foot of the ladder he started, and threwthe nightcap behind him.
She was only come to tell him that his cup of soup was ready; and, whenhe could hear that she was gone, he picked up the nightcap again, anda great brown sun-kapje--just such a kapje and such a dress as one ofthose he remembered to have seen a sister of mercy wear. Gregory'smind was very full of thought. He took down a fragment of an oldlooking-glass from behind a beam, and put the kapje on. His beard lookedsomewhat grotesque under it; he put up his hand to hide it--that wasbetter. The blue eyes looked out with the mild gentleness that becameeyes looking out from under a kapje. Next he took the brown dress, and,looking round furtively, slipped it over his head. He had just gothis arms in the sleeves, and was trying to hook up the back, when anincrease in the patter of the rain at the window made him drag it offhastily. When he perceived there was no one coming he tumbled the thingsback into the box, and, covering it carefully, went down the ladder.
Em was still at her work, trying to adjust a new needle in the machine.Gregory drank his soup, and then sat before her, an awful and mysteriouslook in his eyes.
"I am going to town tomorrow," he said.
"I'm almost afraid you won't be able to go," said Em, who was intent onher needle; "I don't think it is going to leave off today."
"I am going," said Gregory.
Em looked up.
"But the sloots are as full as rivers; you cannot go. We can wait forthe post," she said.
"I am not going for the post," said Gregory, impressively.
Em looked for explanation; none came.
"When will you be back?"
"I am not coming back."
"Are you going to your friends?"
Gregory waited, then caught her by the wrist.
"Look here, Em," he said between his teeth, "I can't stand it any more.I am going to her."
Since that day, when he had come home and found Lyndall gone, he hadnever talked of her; but Em knew who it was who needed to be spoken ofby no name.
She said, when he had released her hand:
"But you do not know where she is?"
"Yes, I do. She was in Bloemfontein when I heard last. I will go there,and I will find out where she went then, and then, and then! I will haveher."
Em turned the wheel quickly, and the ill-adjusted needle sprung intotwenty fragments.
"Gregory," she said, "she does not want us; she told us so clearly inthe letter she wrote." A flush rose on her face as she spoke. "It willonly be pain to you, Gregory: Will she like to have you near her?"
There was an answer he might have made, but it was his secret, and hedid not choose to share it. He said only:
"I am going."
"Will you be gone long, Gregory?"
"I do not know; perhaps I shall never come back. Do what you please withmy things. I cannot stay here!"
He rose from his seat.
"People say, forget, forget!" he cried, pacing the room. They are mad!they are fools! Do they say so to men who are dying of thirst--forget,forget? Why is it only to us they say so! It is a lie to say that timemakes it easy; it is afterward, afterward that it eats in at your heart!
"All these months," he cried bitterly, "I have lived here quietly, dayafter day, as if I cared for what I ate, and what I drank, and what Idid! I care for nothing! I cannot bear it! I will not! Forget! forget!"ejaculated Gregory. "You can forget all the world, but you cannot forgetyourself. When one thing is more to you than yourself, how are you toforget it?
"I read," he said--"yes; and then I come to a word she used, and itis all back with me again! I go to count my sheep, and I see her facebefore me, and I stand and let the sheep run by. I look at you, and inyour smile, a something at the corner of your lips, I see her. How can Iforget her when, whenever I turn, she is there, and not there? I cannot,I will not, live where I do not see her.
"I know what you think," he said, turning upon her. "You think I am mad;you think I am going to see whether she will not like me! I am not sofoolish. I should have known at first she never could suffer me. Who amI, what am I, that she should look at me? It was right t
hat she left me;right that she should not look at me. If any one says it is not, it isa lie! I am not going to speak to her," he added--"only to see her; onlyto stand sometimes in a place where she has stood before."
The Story of an African Farm Page 25
