Jess: Chapter 16
Chapter 16
PRETORIA
Jess was not very happy at Pretoria previous to the unexpected outbreak
of hostilities. Most people who have made a great moral effort, and
after some severe mental struggle have entered on the drear path from
self-sacrifice, experience the reaction that will follow as certainly
as the night follows the day. It is one thing to renounce the light,
to stand in the full glow of the setting beams of our imperial joy and
chant out our farewell, and quite another to live alone in the darkness.
For a little while memory may support us, but memory grows faint. On
every side is the thick, cheerless pall and that stillness through which
no sound comes. We are alone, quite alone, cut off from the fellowship
of the day, unseeing and unseen. More especially is this so when the
dungeon is of our own making, and we ourselves have shot its bolts.
There is a natural night that comes to all, and in its unwavering course
swallows every mortal hope and fear, for ever and for ever. To this we
can more easily resign ourselves, for we recognise the universal lot
and bow ourselves beneath the all-effacing hand. The earth does not pine
when the daylight passes from its peaks; it only sleeps.
But Jess had buried herself and she knew it. There was no absolute need
for her to have sacrificed her affection to her sister's: she had done
so of her own will, and at times not unnaturally she was regretful.
Self-denial is a stern-faced angel. If only we hold him fast and wrestle
with him long enough he will speak us soft words of happy sound, just
as, if we wait long enough in the darkness of the night, stars will come
to share our loneliness. Still this is one of those things that Time
hides from us and only reveals at his own pleasure; and, so far as Jess
was concerned, his pleasure was not yet. Outwardly, however, she showed
no sign of her distress and of the passion which was eating at her
heart. She was pale and silent, it is true, but then she had always been
remarkable for her pallor and silence. Only she gave up her singing.
So the weeks passed very drearily for the poor girl, who was doing what
other people did--eating and drinking, riding, and going to parties like
the rest of the Pretoria world, till at last she began to think that
she had better be returning home again, lest she should wear out her
welcome. And yet she dreaded to do so, mindful of her daily prayer to be
delivered from temptation. As to what was happening at Mooifontein she
was in almost complete ignorance. Bessie wrote to her, of course, and so
did her uncle once or twice, but they did not tell her much of what she
wanted to know. Bessie's letters were, it is true, full of allusions
to what Captain Niel was doing, but she did not go beyond that. Her
reticence, however, told her observant sister more than her words. Why
was she so reticent? No doubt because things still hung in the balance.
Then Jess would think of what it all meant for her, and now and again
give way to an outburst of passionate jealousy which would have been
painful enough to witness if anybody had been there to see it.
Thus the time went on towards Christmas, for Jess, having been warmly
pressed to do so, had settled to stay over Christmas and return to the
farm with the new year. There had been a great deal of talk in the town
about the Boers, but she was too much preoccupied with her own affairs
to pay much attention to it. Nor, indeed, was the public mind greatly
moved; they were so much accustomed to Boer scares at Pretoria, and
hitherto these had invariably ended in smoke. But all of a sudden,
on the morning of the eighteenth of December, came the news of the
proclamation of the Republic. The town was thrown into a ferment, and
there arose a talk of going into laager, so that, anxious as she was
to get away, Jess could see no hope of returning to the farm till the
excitement was over. Then, a day or two later, Conductor Egerton came
limping into Pretoria from the scene of the disaster at Bronker's
Spruit, with the colours of the 94th Regiment tied round his middle,
and such a tale to tell that the blood went to her heart and seemed to
stagnate there as she listened.
After that there was confusion worse confounded. Martial law having
been proclaimed, the town, which was large, straggling, and incapable of
defence, was abandoned, the inhabitants being ordered into laager on the
high ground overlooking the city. There they were, young and old, sick
and well, delicate women and little children, all crowded together in
the open under the cover of the fort, with nothing but canvas tents,
waggons, and sheds to shelter them from the fierce summer suns and
rains. Jess shared a waggon with her friend and her friend's sister and
mother, and found it rather a tight fit even to lie down. Sleep with all
the noises of the camp going on round her was almost impossible.
It was about three o'clock on the day following that first miserable
night in the laager when, by the last mail that passed into Pretoria,
she received Bessie's letter, announcing her engagement to John. She
took her letter and went some way from the camp to the side of Signal
Hill, where she was not likely to be disturbed, and, finding a nook
shaded by mimosa-trees, sat down and broke the envelope. Before she had
reached the foot of the first page she saw what was coming and set her
teeth. Then she read the long epistle through from beginning to end
without flinching, though the words of affection seemed to burn her. So
it had come at last. Well, she expected it, and had plotted to bring it
about, so really there was no reason in the world why she should feel
disappointed. On the contrary, she ought to rejoice, and for a little
while she really did rejoice in her sister's happiness. It made her glad
to think that Bessie, whom she so dearly loved, was happy.
And yet she felt angry with John with that sort of anger which we feel
against those who have blindly injured us. Why should it be in his power
to hurt her so cruelly? Still she hoped that he would be happy with
Bessie, and then she hoped that these wretched Boers would take
Pretoria, and that she would be shot or otherwise put out of the way.
She had no heart for life; all the colour had faded from her sky. What
was she to do with her future? Marry somebody and busy herself with
rearing a pack of children? It would be a physical impossibility to her.
No, she would go away to Europe and mix in the great stream of life and
struggle with it, and see if she could win a place for herself among the
people of her day. She had it in her, she knew that; and now that she
had put herself out of the reach of passion she would be more likely to
succeed, for success is to the impassive, who are also the strong. She
would not stop on the farm after John and Bessie were married; she
was quite determined as to that; nor, if she could avoid it, would she
return there before they were married. She would see him no more, no
more! Alas, that she had ever seen him.
Feeling somewhat happier, or at any rate calmer, in this decision, she
rose to return to the noisy camp, extending her walk, however, by a
detour towards the Heidelberg road, for she was anxious to be alone as
long as she could. She had been walking some ten minutes when she caught
sight of a cart that seemed familiar to her, with three horses harnessed
in front of it and one tied behind, which were also familiar. There were
many men walking alongside the cart all talking eagerly.
Jess halted to let the little procession go by, when suddenly she
perceived John Niel among these men and recognised the Zulu Mouti on the
box. _There_ was the man whom she had just vowed never to see again, and
the sight of him seemed to take all her strength out of her, so that
she felt inclined to sink down upon the veldt. His sudden appearance was
almost uncanny in the sharpness of its illustration of her impotence in
the hands of Fate. She felt it then; all in an instant it seemed to be
borne in upon her mind that she could not help herself, but was only
the instrument in the hands of a superior power whose will she was
fulfilling through the workings of her passion, and to whom her
individual fate was a matter of little moment. It was inconclusive
reasoning and perilous doctrine, but it must be allowed that the
circumstances gave it a colour of truth. And, after all, the border-line
between fatalism and free-will has never been quite authoritatively
settled, even by St. Paul, so perhaps she was right. Mankind does not
like to admit it, but it is, at the least, a question whether we can
oppose our little wills against the forces of a universal law, or
derange the details of an unvarying plan to suit the petty wants and
hopes of individual mortality. Jess was a clever woman, but it would
take a wiser head than hers to know where or when to draw that red line
across the writings of our lives.
On came the cart and the knot of men, then suddenly John looked up and
saw her gazing at him with those dark eyes that at times did indeed
seem as though they were the windows of her soul. He turned and said
something to his companions and to the Zulu Mouti, who went on with the
cart, then he came towards her smiling and with outstretched hand.
"How do you do, Jess?" he said. "So I have found you all right?"
She took his hand and answered, almost angrily, "Why have you come? Why
did you leave Bessie and my uncle?"
"I came because I was sent, also because I wished it. I wanted to bring
you back home before Pretoria was besieged."
"You must have been mad! How could you expect to get back? We shall both
be shut up here together now."
"So it appears. Well, things might be worse," he added cheerfully.
"I do not think that anything could be worse," she answered with a stamp
of her foot, then, quite thrown off her balance, she burst incontinently
into a flood of tears.
John Niel was a very simple-minded man, and it never struck him to
attribute her grief to any other cause than anxiety at the state of
affairs and at her incarceration for an indefinite period in a besieged
town that ran the daily risk of being taken _vi et armis_. Still he was
a little hurt at the manner of his reception after his long and most
perilous journey, which is not, perhaps, to be wondered at.
"Well, Jess," he said, "I think that you might speak a little more
kindly to me, considering--considering all things. There, don't cry,
they are all right at Mooifontein, and I dare say that we shall win back
there somehow some time or other. I had a nice business to get here at
all, I can tell you."
Suddenly she stopped weeping and smiled, her tears passing away like a
summer storm. "How did you get through?" she asked. "Tell me all about
it, Captain Niel," and accordingly he did.
She listened in silence while he sketched the chief events of his
journey, and when he had done she spoke in quite a changed tone.
"It is very good and kind of you to have risked your life like this for
me. Only I wonder that you did not all of you see that it would be of no
use. We shall both be shut up here together now, that is all, and that
will be very sad for you and Bessie."
"Oh! So you have heard of our engagement?" he said.
"Yes, I read Bessie's letter about a couple of hours ago, and I
congratulate you both very much. I think that you will have the sweetest
and loveliest wife in South Africa, Captain Niel; and I think that
Bessie will have a husband any woman might be proud of;" and she half
bowed and half curtseyed to him as she said it, with a graceful little
air of dignity that was very taking.
"Thank you," he answered simply; "yes, I think I am a very lucky
fellow."
"And now," she said, "we had better go and see about the cart. You will
have to find a stand for it in that wretched laager. You must be very
tired and hungry."
A few minutes' walk brought them to the cart, which Mouti had outspanned
close to Mrs. Neville's waggon, where Jess and her friends were living,
and the first person they saw was Mrs. Neville herself. She was a good,
motherly colonial woman, accustomed to a rough life, and one not easily
disturbed by emergencies.
"My goodness, Captain Niel!" she cried, as soon as Jess had introduced
him. "Well, you are plucky to have forced your way through all those
horrid Boers! I am sure I wonder that they did not shoot you or beat
you to death with _sjambocks_, the brutes. Not that there is much use
in your coming, for you will never be able to take Jess back till Sir
George Colley relieves us, and that can't be for two months, they say.
Well, there is one thing; Jess will be able to sleep in the cart now,
and you can have one of the patrol-tents and camp alongside. It won't
be quite proper, perhaps, but in these times we can't stop to consider
propriety. There, there, you go off to the Governor. He will be glad
enough to see you, I'll be bound; I saw him at the other end of the camp
five minutes ago. We will have the cart unpacked and arrange about the
horses."
Thus adjured, John departed, and when he returned half an hour
afterwards, having told his eventful tale, which did not, however,
convey any information of general value, he was rejoiced to find that
the process of "getting things straight" was almost complete. What was
better still, Jess had fried him a beefsteak over the camp fire, and was
now employed in serving it on a little table by the waggon. He sat down
on a stool and ate his meal heartily enough, while Jess waited on him
and Mrs. Neville chattered incessantly.
"By the way," she said, "Jess tells me that you are going to marry her
sister. Well, I wish you joy. A man wants a wife in this country. It
isn't like England, where in five cases out of six he might as well go
and cut his throat as get married. It saves him money here, and children
are a blessing, as Nature meant them to be, and not a burden, as
civilisation has made them. Lord, how my tongue does run on! It isn't
delicate to talk about children when you have only been engaged a couple
of weeks; but, you see, that's what it comes to after all. She's a
pretty girl, Bessie, and a good one too--I don't know her much--though
she hasn't got the brains of Jess here. That reminds me; as you are
engaged to Bessie, of course you can look after Jess, and nobody will
think anything of it. Ah! if you only knew what a place this is for
talk, though their talk is pretty well scared out of them now, I'm
thinking. My husband is coming round presently to the cart to help to
get Jess's bed into it. Lucky it's big. We are such a tight fit in that
waggon that I shall be downright glad to see the last of the dear girl;
though, of course, you'll both come and take your meals with us."
Jess heard all this in silence. She could not well insist upon stopping
in the crowded waggon; it would be asking too much; and, besides, she
had passed one night there, and that was quite enough for her. Once she
suggested that she should try to persuade the nuns to take her in at the
convent, but Mrs. Neville suppressed the notion instantly.
"Nuns!" she said; "nonsense. When your own brother-in-law--at least he
will be your brother-in-law if the Boers don't make an end of us all--is
here to take care of you, don't talk about going to a parcel of nuns. It
will be as much as they can do to look after themselves, I'll be bound."
As for John, he ate his steak and said nothing. The arrangement seemed a
very proper one to him.