Wild Honey Part 7

"_Tant mieux_!" she said at last, and discarded the rush hat and tattered s.h.i.+rt almost violently as if with them she hoped to throw off the last trace of her veld madness.

Wrapped in the mackintosh she slipped out to the waiting cart in the dimness of the dawn, and started on the last lap of the journey that was originally to have taken her ten days, but had already extended to six weeks! Only when the lights of Buluwayo gleamed before her at last could she really believe the end had come.

Within a week, civilisation had its grip on her once more, and she was her cynical self with the nut of bitter dust back in her breast.

The opening up of the country had brought a fas.h.i.+onable English crowd to Buluwayo, among them many people that she knew and had special feuds with. One of the latter was Lady Angela Vinning, a woman with a good figure, beautiful, pleading green eyes, and thumbs down on every other woman except those who for the moment happened to fit into her schemes.

She and Vivienne were staying at the same hotel, and exchanged polite greetings and glances of disdain every morning. Vivienne despised her for what she was: false, unscrupulous, and mean-souled. She detested Vivienne for being fifteen years younger than herself, and that is the most poignant of all the feminine hatreds.

Other grounds for general detestation by her own s.e.x soon made patent to Vivienne were: (1) that Wolfe Montague, the richest man in South Africa, took no pains to hide the fact that his main business in Buluwayo was to be perpetually at her heels; (2) that having been romantically lost on the veld and found again no one quite knew how, she was the most-talked-of person in the country; and (3) that she had turned up looking perfectly radiant, and been seen of none until after regaining possession of her extremely _chic_ clothes. Tales with a tang to them were soon flying round Buluwayo. Vivienne a.s.sumed her mask and with a calm mien went about her business of "writing up" the country. But behind the mask and the mien she was raging. It was London and the torment of the last few years over again, only at closer quarters, for here she must share the same hotel with her enemies, run into them daily, and smile and exchange sweet words with them.

"If I could only wipe my boots on them all instead!" she thought savagely, and at such moments almost decided to marry Montague, whose flame grew more and more ardent with the days. But always a shadow slipped between her and her decision--a shadow with grey eyes! Where had those eyes disappeared to? She never saw them, and no one mentioned the name Kerry. The thing puzzled her, yet she was grimly glad. Of what use getting that strange torment of honey and perfume and wild places into her veins again, when she cared only for the call of civilisation, longed only for power and the weapons of wealth with which to smite these little-minded women who thought themselves so clever and fine? She would never be happy until she had power to make others suffer as she had been made to suffer. What had such an ambition to do with the honeyed madness she had known on the banks of the Lundi?

Nothing.

One day, writing by the open window of her bedroom, she heard two men talking in the hotel verandah. One was a solicitor whom she had met, called Cornwall, and a remark of his riveted her attention.

"Brain and Hunt are after it. They'll give five hundred, but de Windt doesn't seem inclined to sell, though he needs money to get up North."

"I'll go a hundred better," said the other man firmly. "It's a good farm and I'd like it myself. Try him with that."

"Right. I'll try him."

Vivienne sat transfixed. The whole story rushed back to her mind and with it the remembrance of her plan to outdo the rogues by buying the farm herself. She had scorned the idea then, and despised herself for harbouring it, but in her present frame of mind it stood up salient and welcome as an old friend. Swiftly she found herself once more considering the question of where to raise the money.

She heard the other man bid Cornwall good-bye with a last injunction to see de Windt at once and make the offer, and a moment or two later she sauntered into the verandah and spoke to the solicitor.

"I heard that man's offer for de Windt's farm, and I want to tell you I'd like to buy it myself. I'll give 800 pounds."

Cornwall stared at her, smiling.

"You bitten with the land mania too, Miss Carlton?"

"Yes."

"There's plenty of it about," he remarked tentatively. "And de Windt's not particularly keen on selling."

"It must be _his_ farm or none," she said firmly. "I have a particular fancy for the place."

"Oh, well! I'll see what I can do for you. It's a good offer, more than the farm is worth, I think. De Windt's lying ill at present with a bad go of malaria. But I'll put the matter to him and let you know the result."

"Thank you."

She went inside again, and sat on her bed pretending to wonder where the money was to come from. In reality she knew perfectly well, and she didn't care. She was in the dirty business now, up to her eyebrows, for loss or gain. If she gained she would give back Montague his 800 pounds and a wave of the hand. If she lost she must marry him and forever hide the fact that he had been no more than a cat's-paw and a _pis aller_.

"He is too good for me anyway," she reflected. "Any man is too good for me. I've become a scoundrel and an adventuress. Three months of South Africa have done wonders for me! And I don't care--I don't care!"

She bathed her hot face but could not take the burn from it. It was still brightly flushed, making her look very young and lovely, when she stood before Montague and proffered her abrupt request.

"Will you lend me a thousand pounds for three months?"

Reflection had shown her that she might have to bid higher, or that even if she got it for 800 pounds she would need a margin sum with which to prosecute the search for gold. Further, if she could borrow the money for three months, she might be able to sell and refund to him.

"Of course," said Montague promptly, and could not keep elation out of his eyes. He looked like a large fair bull, was very red and very good-natured, but a hard man at a bargain.

"And will you do something for me?" he asked smiling.

"I cannot attach any conditions," she said quickly. "Mine is entirely a business proposition."

"And mine is, as far at least as I am concerned, pure pleasure. It is only to ask you to wear this little jewel for me." He held out a small morocco leather case, but she did not put out a hand to receive it. He sighed.

"Say then to wear it for three months. If when we clear up this terribly serious business proposition you wish to return it to me with the thousand, so be it. If you consent to keep it, I can only say--you will make me the happiest man in the world."

Mechanically her hand received the small case, and for a moment his hand closed on hers, and carried it to his lips. She grew a little pale.

"I cannot promise anything," she stammered, drawing her hand away.

"I do not ask you to... yet," was his answer, but the ring remained with her, and she knew it was part of the bargain. When she opened the case she was furious with herself, for it was a ring that could not escape note--a great single stone, amber coloured, set in a band of violet enamel.

They were all dining at Government House that night, and she wore it, striving to hide its brilliance amongst a number of other stones, but it glared out yellow and baleful as a tiger's eye. Lady Angela was the first to spot it.

"What a glorious stone! I do so love a yellow diamond. Is it out of the famous Montague mine, or a mere de Beer's? Journalism must pay, dear Viwie!"

She gave a little silvery laugh that rippled up Vivienne's spine like an asp, and left a poisoned wound.

Neither did a conversation carried on at her right in full hearing act as an antidote. A Judge of the High Court was telling his dinner neighbour what a charming fellow de Windt was, and how they would all miss him when he pulled out for the North.

"The country can't afford to lose men like that! But they are real lovers of the wild and won't stay when we begin to get too civilised."

"Yet de Windt himself is one of the most civilised fellows I've ever met," said the Administrator. "When all Colonials are like him, Africa will begin to move."

"A Colonial? _Pas possible_!" cried a woman.

"It is possible though. He was born out here and spite of Harrow and Oxford and a place at the Bar, Africa has him in her maw for good."

"The dear fellow would have been here to-night, if he had not been so ill," said the hostess. And the wretched Vivienne was thankful she had been spared that ordeal at least. But she held fast to her plan. What matter whether de Windt were a splendid fellow or not? Since he loved the wild, all the better for him--he wouldn't miss his gold mine! She felt herself growing harder and harder every moment.

"Millionaires must be made of tough stuff," she thought sardonically.

"Fine fellows! I expect I shall begin to look like one soon. Eyes like flint with pouches under them, and a tiger trap for a mouth! _Zut, alors_!"

Thanks to Lady Angela the news was all over Buluwayo the next day that she was wearing Montague's ring. Even the fact that Cornwall came bearing propitious tidings did little to quench Vivienne's rage.

"It's all right," he said. "De Windt will take your offer. The other people are keen as mustard and want to go higher, but he says he wouldn't sell to them at any price."

"I want it fixed up at once," she said feverishly.

"As soon as you like. He asked me to hustle it along too, in case you changed your mind. The poor fellow has had a bad go of fever, but the news quite cheered him up, and he'll be about in a day or two. He seems greatly pleased at your wanting the place."