Part 29 (1/2)

That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth.”

Bramham amused Poppy in this fas.h.i.+on for something like two hours, and then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.

”What is the matter with me,” she said wonderingly, ”that I can laugh and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things.”

Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but also fresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when she saw it.

That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with the ”black b.u.t.terflies” swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own time.

Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.

In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden.

Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate and had escaped that way, or else through the _boys'_ compound.

Certainly he would never dream of seeking for her in the house of Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and a.s.sistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was, in the slang of the day, either ”moth-eaten,” or ”cracked.”

At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she feared would find her out.

Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts, a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her a strong liking and comrades.h.i.+p, and she hoped he had the same feeling for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.

She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure of existence--to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature.

”Life out here is saltless and savourless--just one day's march nearer _voetsack_, unless someone takes an interest in you,” was the disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that was even more direct than his words.

”But you must have heaps of people who do that,” Poppy answered evenly, ”and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life.”

”How do you know I'm a success?” somewhat gloomily.

”Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, a.s.sured look of a man whose future is secure.”

”You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!”

”Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?”

”Are you comparing me with Johnson?” asked Bramham, grinning.

”Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach success.”

”You're mistaken there,” said Bramham. ”There are plenty of men out here who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties, and come out top-dog.”

Poppy smiled sceptically.

”Difficulties, yes--but poverty and bitter want?

”'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'

”What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often starved, but never their bodies, and there is always the suns.h.i.+ne, to clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real meaning of the word poverty--you, for instance?”