Blue Aloes Part 41

"And you will allow a natural curiosity in me to demand why you should harry my friend like this--browbeat her for a girlish folly entered into mutually by two girls and ending in tragedy through no fault of April's?" The painter's eyes burned with a blue fire bleak as her own mountain tops. It was as though Joan of Arc had come to the rescue and was sweeping the room with valiant sword. Even Kenna was partially intimidated.

"That is her story," he muttered.

"You fool, Ronald Kenna," she said gently. "Can't you look in her face and see there is no touch of treachery or darkness there? Thank G.o.d, Kerry is not so blind."

There was a deep silence. Then she said:

"Listen, then, to my story," and repeated the facts April had told her, but as April could never have told them, so profound was her understanding of the motives of the two girls in exchanging ident.i.ties, so tender her treatment of the wayward Diana. Truly this "unfulfilled woman" was greater in the width and depth of her soul than many of those to whom life has given fulfilment of their dreams.

Daylight faded, and shadows stole through the open windows. In the large, low-ceiled room cl.u.s.tered with saddles and harness and exquisite pictures, everything grew dim, except their white faces, and the glistening of tears as they dripped from April's lids.

"I must ask to be forgiven," said Kenna very humbly, at last. "My only plea is that my friends.h.i.+p for Kerry blinded me. And . . ." he halted an instant before the confession of his trouble. "I once loved that little wayward girl."

So it was Diana Vernilands who had proved false and sent him into the wilds! Somehow that explained much to them all: much for forgiveness, but very much more for pity and sympathy.

Suddenly the peace of eventide was rudely shattered by the jarring clank of a motor being geared-up for starting. Evidently Ghostie's friends were departing in the same aloof spirit with which they had held apart all the afternoon. No one in the studio stirred to speed the parting guests. It did not seem fitting to obtrude upon the pride of the great. A woman's voice bade good-bye, and Ghostie was heard warning them of a large rock fifty yards up the lane. A man called good-night, and they were off.

"By Jove! I know that fellow's voice," puzzled Sarle. April thought she did too, but she was in a kind of happy trance where voices did not matter. The next episode was Ghostie at the studio window blotting out the evening skies.

"They have gone," she timidly announced.

"Ah! Joy go with them," remarked Clive, more in relief than regret.

"But there is still one of them in my room."

"_What?_"

"She has been waiting to speak to you all the afternoon; they all have, but they could not face the crowd."

"Pore fellers," said Clive, with cutting irony.

"The one in my room's--a girl," said Ghostie--"a friend of yours."

"She has strange ways," commented Clive glumly. "But ask her to come in. These also are my friends."

Ghostie disappeared. Simultaneously the two men arose; remarking that they must be going--they had stayed too late, and it was getting dark.

Clive easily shut them up.

"Of course you can't go. Stay to supper and go back by the light of the moon. We've got to have some music and sit on the Counsel Rock, and eat--apricots and all sorts of things yet. And afterwards we'll come a bit of the way with you."

They did not need much persuasion to settle down again. Clive handed round smokes.

"We won't spoil the best hour of the day by lighting the lamp," she said. They waited. In a minute or so they heard the strange girl approaching. The house consisted of a number of rooms built in the form of a square round a little back courtyard. Each room led into the other, but had also an outer door. Ghostie's room was third from the studio, with one between, unused because of huge holes in the floor.

It was through this dilapidated chamber that the girl could now be heard approaching, clicking her high heels and picking her way delicately by the aid of a candle whose beams showed under the door and flicked across the courtyard at the back. In spite of its light she caught one of her high heels in a hole, and a faint but distinctly naughty word was heard, followed by a giggle. As she reached the door she blew out the candle. They heard the puff of her breath, as plainly as they had heard the naughty word. Then she stood in the open doorway, visible only because she wore a white dress.

"Come in," said Clive with politeness, but irony not quite gone from her voice. The figure did not stir or speak. For some reason unknown to her, April felt the hair on her scalp stir as though a chill wind had blown through it. And the same wind sent a thrill down her backbone. Clive repeated the invitation, somewhat sharply, and then the girl spoke.

"I'm ashamed to come in."

The voice was timid, and very low, but it was enough to make April give a broken cry and hide her face in Sarle's shoulder. Kenna leapt to his feet, and next moment the yellow spurt of a lighted match in his hand revealed the drooping face of the girl in the doorway.

"My G.o.d! Diana!"

"Yes; isn't it awful!" she said mournfully. "I know I ought to be dead, but I'm not. How do you do, Ronny?"

She pa.s.sed him and came slowly across the room to the girl who was trembling violently against Sarle's shoulder. The strain of the day, ending in this, was almost more than April Poole could bear.

"Don't be frightened, April." She was genuinely concerned. "It is really me and not my ghost. You see, I never jumped overboard at all, but simply hid in one of Geoffrey Bellew's big packing-cases. I really could not face those enraged beasts and Philistines any longer."

There was an amazed and gasping silence, but Diana in the middle of the limelight was in her element, and rapidly regained her spirits. She tripped to Clive and shook her warmly by the hand.

"So pleased to see you. I should have come out here long ago, but I got so knocked about in the packing-case that I had to go to bed and be nursed by Geoff's old aunt at Wynberg. Everything perfectly proper, so don't be alarmed. She chaperoned us out here this afternoon, you know, and would have liked to see you, but really it was rather awkward with Ronny and Major Sarle turning up immediately afterwards. We didn't expect to find April here either--naturally. That was a nasty bang in the eye. I begged Ghostie to hide me in her room, and we waited and waited, but these terrible men seem to have taken root here." She twinkled at them gaily, but no one appeared to have recovered sufficiently from shock to reciprocate her pert amus.e.m.e.nt.

"So at last, of course, I had to bundle them off and face the music alone. Especially as _belle_ Helene told me there was some sort of trouble boiling up in here for poor April."

"I suppose you never realized that trouble has been boiling up for her ever since you disappeared?" said Clive.

"Oh, but of course; and I've been dreadfully sorry, and worrying myself to ribbons."

"It doesn't seem to have interfered with your health," was Clive's only rejoinder. "May one ask what you intended to do to put things straight?"

Diana had the grace to look slightly abashed--only slightly.

"There was nothing for it but to come out here to you and sit tight until the scandal had blown over, while April returned to England.

Once she got on board she would have found a letter telling her it was all right, and that I was not dead at all."

"Very charming and considerate too!" commented Ronald Kenna acidly. "A few other people, including Sarle and myself, might have been dead in the meantime, but what would that have mattered?"

It was no use being acid with Diana, however. She was riotously pleased with herself, and bubbling over with pride in her cleverness, and joy in her escape from seclusion. Infection from her light-heartedness was almost impossible, and once the shock had pa.s.sed, April easily forgave her the cruel and thoughtless part she had played, the hours of anguish she had given. Sarle and Kenna exchanged one grim glance, but it ended in a smile. The deep-rooted friends.h.i.+ps of men do not hurry to such short and poor conclusions. Besides, Sarle had come that day to the attainment of his heart's desire, and was not inclined to fall out with either Fate or friends. As for Kenna, looking at the gilt-haired minx who held his heart-strings, he saw as in a vision that days of peaceful loneliness on the veld were pa.s.sing, and the future held more uneasiness and folly than the mere month of April could cover. He would need all the friends he had to see him through.

[1] Basuto for "Far away over there."