One day, towards the end of the dry season in Central Africa more than two years later, Norah was sitting on an empty packing-case under the shade of an acacia, watching the tiling of her house.
Archie had been two years building it. He was so thorough that he sometimes maddened her. Moreover, every brick and tile had to be moulded and burnt on the farm; anthill clay for mortar dug and carried; shells for lime pointing dredged from the river and burnt in kilns; timber felled, dragged and hand sawn; doors and windows made in the shop; bolts and iron work wrought in the forge; and natives taught to do all this.
At last the white walls were up, the verandah pillars stood square and solid, and the skeleton of the king post roof reared its symmetry across the cloudless blue sky. A string of naked black urchins herded by an objurgatory black capitao formed a chattering procession carrying tiles, two in each hand and one on each head, to the tile hangers, who crouched like black apes on the rafters.
Norah felt no elation at the thought of good work nearly done, and stared blankly across a prospect of profitless and laborious years. True, she would be heartily glad to be quit of her temporary habitation of the last thirty months. From where she sat, she could see the cluster of wattle-and-daub rondavels, where they lived while the permanent house was building. It was across a little river that ran swift as a mill race, bordered by marshy banks hidden in papyrus rushes with heads like mops. Waterfowl, black, white, and grey, rose into the air from time to time with harsh, melancholy cries. On either bank of the river lay the flats, where grew the dry season grass for Archie's cattle. The edge of the bush, as straight as if drawn with a ruler, fringed the flats. Desolation gained her when she thought how many square miles of trees lay between her and her nearest white neighbour. Beyond the tops of the trees she could see the rounded slopes of the hills, blue in the distance, as bright as a child's painting.
On the flats, which stayed green when the scanty grass of the bush had turned orange, she could see Archie's beloved herds and, going his rounds, looking out for sick and ailing beasts, Archie himself. To-day the disreputable grey double terai had for company a dirty white topee. A wandering 'stiff' had descended on the farm some evenings before with a ulendo[1] of two carriers. They had few visitors, a dozen or two in the year, traders, missionaries, Boma[2] officials, and occasionally a 'stiff,' some unfortunate with insufficient kit and carriers, his presence in the country imperfectly explained by an ostensible search for work where none was to be found. Such were usually chary of giving their names or their business. This one, a wizened little fellow with a half-hearted beard and a game leg, answered, when he remembered, to the name of Jones, and purported to have come from the Congo, over whose frontier he admitted to have been escorted by Belgian askari. He had a repertory of elephant stories and tales of tusks of incredible size, but became elusive if pressed as to locality. He was now, no doubt, giving Archie a wealth of inexpert advice on the treatment of cattle, and Norah smiled as she imagined the impenetrable silence with which it would be received.
Archie had proved to have a knack with cattle. Brought up on the farm his mother had inherited, he had learnt a good deal of veterinary work in the gunners. The herd of native cattle he had collected was as good as any in the country, and for grass his farm was unrivalled. But lack of markets and the distance from rail-head, which made freight prohibitive and the amenities of civilisation rare, held him up. The only market which was not at the moment barred by the embargoes of God or man—tsetse fly belts or prohibited areas—was the Katanga, the district of the Congo copper mines, whose vast compounds of native workers consumed unlimited meat. The depreciated Belgian exchange, however, made it unprofitable for Archie to sell there. So, while his herds increased and multiplied, his bank balance, under the constant drain of working expenses, ebbed.
The cattle were already streaming to their kraals on the high ground. Amid the shouting of the herd-boys, they snatched at a last bite of grass as they shouldered their way and a little mist of dust rose from their hoofs. Norah got up with a sigh as the sun sank behind the darkened hills. Cattle attract lions and leopards, and it was not safe for man or domestic beast to be abroad after dark.
She reached the ferry and stepped into the dug-out canoe, manned by an elderly native with a withered leg, whom Archie employed from charity. He pointed the nose of the canoe up-stream and pushed off. Carried by the current, the boat swung round and bumped into the rough steps on the farther bank. She sprang out bidding good-night to the old man, who knelt down and clapped his hands in salutation.
Archie had not reached the rondavels before her; he would be seeing the cattle safely kraaled for the night. Her 'boy,' Changalilo, brought quinine and silently prepared a hip-bath for her.
Silence, discretion, and resource, were Changalilo's rare qualifications. His tribe, the Awemba, a dignified, well-mannered, and once warlike race, are as a rule too irresponsible to make good servants. Norah explained the exception that was Changalilo by attributing to him Arab blood. His lips and jaw showed no trace of negroid thickness, and it was likely enough that in passage some Arab slave trader had sired one of his parents.
His slimness and his white kanju made him look taller than he really was, and his grave restrained manner lent him an aloofness which was probably absent from his simple heart. Now he lingered in the room soundlessly creating an impression, as native courtesy directs, that there was something more to be said.
'What is it, Changalilo?' asked Norah.
'Io, mwkai—nothing, mistress,' came the disclaimer imposed by good form on any speaker with news to impart.
Further interrogation elicited the fact that the sukambali, a lad of fourteen who hewed wood, drew water, and washed plates, stated that his father was ill, and that he wanted to go to his village.
'Is it true?' asked Norah.
Changalilo's silence indicated scepticism.
'In any case, he cannot start to-night,' she decided.
This was just her luck, with a guest in the house. She supposed she would have to let the little beast go, and of course another sukambali would appear in a day or two, but work in the kitchen would be completely disorganised. Unless she cooked with her own hands, food would be uneatable. How she hated housewifery. She had to do it, though. Archie took over the whole work of the farm, and the house fell to her share.
Her days seemed a round of ignoble detail—thwarting the table-boy's appetite for sugar, driving the sukambali to wash the saucepans before they were used, giving out paraffin, and watching that it was not stolen from the lamps. That's what pioneering meant. Well, she must stick it now. She promised Changalilo she would interview the sukambali on the morrow, and dismissed him. There was a sound of inharmonious humming outside, and Archie entered. He was in good spirits, his day's work done, and his visitor bestowed for the moment in the guest house. Norah, forcing a smile, inquired dutifully after the farm.
'Wasted most of the day listening to Jones' rubbish,' was the reply. 'He knows more about elephant than cattle. I hope so, anyhow. Telling me how to control the sex of calves. Pure superstition, of course. His theory is that...' But Norah was not listening. Her gaze wandered from a patch in the bulging wall, where the stakes showed through the dull red mud, to the sagging thatch of the ceilingless roof, whence insects were liable to drop. Her mind contrasted this unromantic squalor with the spacious poverty of her own home, and with the splendour of her London days, exaggerated, no doubt, across the two-year gap of barren makeshift. Bravely, she forced the picture out of her mind and bent her attention to Archie's monosyllabic conversation.
'I think,' he was saying, 'I ought to see to getting another pure bred bull to build up the herd a bit.'
At the familiar words 'build up the herd' Norah's restraint snapped. When you consider that she had loyally suppressed her feelings for over two years, perhaps her outburst may be forgiven her.
'What's the good of building up the precious herd, when you can't sell the brutes? Do you think I've come to live like a Hottentot in this desert to watch you acting midwife to a lot of humpbacked African cows for their sakes? I never see you all day, except at meals when you're eating, and in the evenings, when you're sleeping. I believe you think more of your heifers than you do of your wife.'
Slowly Archie answered.
'It's the only safe line, Norah. If we build up...' he checked himself in time. 'We've got the best herd in the country and it's getting better all the time. When times are normal, we'll sell well. It'll be easier for you in the new house, and it's only a question of time....'
'So's life, Archie, only a question of time. Three score years and ten of it, isn't it? And I've had twenty-four already. How long do you want us to go on?'
But you can supply without my help the stock complaints of an over-wrought woman.
The storm ended unusually for Norah in tears. Silently, Archie tried to soothe her. He was thinking harder than he had for many a day. Constant manual work leaves little room for thought. Typically, he gave no utterance to his meditation. He liked to work things out in his mind, bring his matured plan to a successful issue, and then, and not till then, announce his conclusion. That was his habit, and he pursued it now. Had he told Norah his thoughts, well, it would have spoiled my story and saved a life.
As it was, Norah retired to bed with her nerves in shreds, and Archie dined alone with his nomadic guest, whom a string of 'sundowners' seemed to stimulate. His shrill voice was audible through the mud walls till a late hour. Archie talked more than his wont, and seemed to be asking questions. Only once were any words distinguishable.
'It's a bargain,' said Mr. Jones of the Congo.
Next morning at dawn she was awakened by an unusual bustle. She supposed that their visitor had decided to decamp and that Archie was hospitably supplying him with the many necessaries he lacked, before speeding him on his way. She did not feel her presence was necessary at that ceremony, nor did she as yet want to meet Archie. She was sorry for last night's outburst because it must have hurt him. The look in his eyes had nearly checked her words. But if he cared for her, as his eyes seemed to say, as he once had cared for her, why did his words, his actions never show it now? He never asked her advice, sought her help. She had become part of his daily life, part of the farm, like Simoni, the ploughman. Well, one must expect six years of marriage to kill love, though it seemed a little hard that youth too should be wasted. But it wasn't fair to say things that hurt Archie. She must make it up to him for last night. But not now: she lacked courage to pretend at this time in the morning. And if Archie said the wrong thing she would give herself away, and hurt him afresh. So when he knocked at her door, she lay very still, and shammed sleep. He knocked twice, and hung about for some minutes, apparently undecided whether to make another onslaught. Then his steps receded, and the bustle died away.
When at length she came out to breakfast, wearing a flame coloured jumper that was a favourite of Archie's, she found neither of the men. Changalilo, standing at attention behind her chair, presented the following literary effort:—
'Dearest, have started for Elizabethville on cattle business. Will write from there. Jones is here.—ARCHIE.'”
[1] "Ulendo"—journey or the necessary components of a journey.
[2] "Boma"—lit. enclosure, hence the Government posts.