CHAPTER NINE.

"ONLY A BOER GIRL."

A vision of the portraits flashed through Colvin's mind--the portraits at which he had so often looked, with but faint interest, representing as they did a heavy-looking awkward girl, with hunched shoulders, whom he had set down in his own mind as a mere squat, ugly replica of Condaas. One of the portraits itself stared him in the face even now, over and beyond the shoulder of its original. And this was the original! He saw before him a tall and graceful girl, straight as a dart. Her head, slightly thrown back, as she greeted him with frank and self-possessed composure, was beautifully poised, and crowned with a bounteous coil of silky brown hair. She had lustrous hazel eyes, which could light up in a wonderful way when animated, and a fresh and delicate colour. He noticed, too, that the hand which he took in his was long and soft and tapering--in short, she looked thoroughbred from head to heel, and yet, judged by the most ordinary canons of beauty, he recognised that Aletta De la Rey was not even pretty.

Her features were lacking. They were not regular, and the mouth was somewhat too large. But it was redeemed by white and even teeth, and a way of rippling into a sudden, whole-hearted, and very musical laugh; indeed, the whole expression of her face would light up in a way that rendered it subtly but most unequivocally taking and attractive.

Now, as she greeted Colvin Kershaw for the first time a gleam of just that sudden mirth shot from her eyes. He, reading it aright, became alive to the fact that he did not show to his best advantage, rigged out in a suit of her father's clothes, which was both too long and too wide for him, and, for once in a way, he owned, within his inner self, to a consciousness of feeling ever so slightly disconcerted. But he said quietly:

"Be merciful, Miss De la Rey. At any rate, I am dry and warm after my soaking, for which I feel devoutly grateful."

The colour rushed into Aletta's face as a very wave, but the laugh did not go out of her eyes; on the contrary, it intensified in its struggle not to break forth.

"What a thought-reader you are, Mr Kershaw!" she answered. "But, don't--please don't think me very rude, but--I've--I've heard so much about you that--I seem to know you well already--"

And then the laugh would no longer be kept down. It broke forth in a merry, hearty, silvery peal.

"Aletta!" cried her mother, horror-stricken. "How can you be so rude? What will Mr Kershaw think of you? And when are you going to begin and pour out his coffee for him?"

But, whatever Colvin thought or did not think, there was something so entirely infectious in that laugh that he was joining in it himself with a whole-heartedness which left nothing to be desired; and there was the strange spectacle of two people who had just met for the first time, laughing--as they afterwards put it to each other--like a pair of idiots, one at the other, and that other joining heartily in the joke against himself.

"It's--it's all right, Miss De la Rey," said the latter, when sufficiently recovered to be able to speak coherently. "I am glad to hear you say you seem to know me so well already, because in that case you wilt know that I like nothing better than to be treated as one of the family."

It was a tactful speech, and the girl looked thoroughly capable of appreciating it. So, too, was her mother, who remarked:

"It's so good of you to say so, Mr Kershaw. Really, I don't know what has come over Aletta. They don't seem to have improved at all in Cape Town."

Colvin, to himself, opined that they rather had; indeed, exhaustively so, remembering the weird impression of her set up within his mind by the portraits taken before she left for that capital. He knew, however, that the tone in which this reproach was conveyed took the sting out of the words, which, indeed, it clean belied.

"I didn't know that your eldest daughter was even expected back, Mrs De la Rey," he said.

"No? Aletta came back rather suddenly, and she has come back with all sorts of notions she had better have left behind. Of course, all our people down there belong to the Bond, and we support the Bond ourselves. Yet politics and war-talk over and over again are not fit subjects for girls."

"Now, mother, you are far too old-fashioned. I am going to brush you quite up to date," answered Aletta brightly, but in a sort of caressing tone. "And you must not start Mr Kershaw with a bad opinion of me, like that. It isn't fair."

Colvin owned to himself that that would be difficult, inasmuch as he had started with too good a one on sight and his own responsibility. He had been observing her narrowly while he sat there thoroughly enjoying an excellent supper, and already had not failed to notice that she had a soft and perfectly refined voice and pretty ways. Unlike the others, her English was without accent, save for the little tricks of speech by which you may pick out a born Cape Colonist in any crowd, such as clipping the final "r," or ever so slight a hardening of the vowel at the beginning of the word, and others; tricks of speech which are not unpleasing, and are, moreover, as fully prevalent among children born in the Colony, of emigrated English parents and without a drop of Dutch blood in them.

"But where are the other girls, Mrs De la Rey?" he asked.

"Away. They went to stay with their uncle, Piet Venter, for a few days just before we knew Aletta was coming back. They will be home to-morrow, or as soon as he can bring them."

"Who is that talking over there?" croaked a feminine voice from a far corner, in Dutch--a voice that sounded both irritable and antique. "It seems like that of an Englishman. Nay--I don't know what this good land of ours is coming to. The tongue our fathers spoke with before us was good enough for me in my young days. Now everybody must be chattering in English--a tongue only fit for baboons."

"It is Tant' Plessis," said Mrs De la Rey in English and an undertone, "a sort of distant cousin of Stephanus'; I had forgotten she was in the room. She doesn't say a word for a whole day, sometimes."

Colvin, who had now finished his meal, went over to the speaker, who was seated in a huge armchair in a dark corner. She was a typical old-time Boer _vrouw_, large-faced, heavy, and shapeless. She had small eyes, and her thin hair, which, however, was still almost black, was plastered down flat upon her head.

"_Daag, Tanta_," [Good-day, Aunt] he said, extending his hand. The old woman stared at him for a moment in a sort of semi-distrustful, semi-resentful way, then touched it with a flabby paw.

"_Daag, Neef_," [Good-day, nephew] she replied, then subsided, leaving the other to carry on the conversation--which he did, descanting mainly upon the fine rain which was still falling. She cut him short ruthlessly by calling out:

"Gertruida, who is he?"

Mrs De la Rey, thus invoked, came over to explain.

"Ah, yes. An Englishman! I could have seen that by the way he talks. He does not talk well."

Colvin, glancing round sedately, caught the flash of mirth which had begun to light up Aletta's face. He thought there was some fun coming directly.

"Who is he? What is his name?" she went on.

"It's Mr Kershaw, Tanta," explained Mrs De la Rey. "He often comes here."

"I asked what his name was," shrilled the old woman, bringing the end of her stick down hard upon the floor. "Is it Abram Kershaw, or Izaak Kershaw, or what is it?"

"No, Tanta. It's Colvin--Colvin Kershaw," replied that worthy himself, conscious of something between a gurgle and a sob in the direction of Aletta.

"Calvin. Oh, yes. Calvin--Calvinus, that is. You have a good name, nephew. _Ja_, I have often heard the _predikant_ talk of Calvinus--and preach about him too. Johan was his first name. _Ja_, he was a good man was Calvinus. He killed a great many Roman Catholics--burnt them all. I have often heard Mynheer say so."

The gurgling in Aletta's direction was now becoming convulsive. Colvin himself was inconveniently infected.

"Perhaps you are of his family, nephew," went on Tant' Plessis. "His grandson, perhaps? You must be of his family if you have his name. Well, follow in his footsteps--though to be sure there could not be such a good and great man as Calvinus. He burnt ever so many Roman Catholics. I've heard Mynheer say so; and if he does not know, who does?"

This was too much. Aletta fairly broke down, and, striving to flee from the room in blind precipitation, was brought up in the doorway by the stalwart and substantial proportions of her father, who was entering, and against whom she collided violently.

"So--so! What fun is on now?" cried Stephanus, at once infected by her mirth. "Aletta, you are a very wicked little girl. You are always laughing. Only wicked little girls always laugh, and at their elders too, I believe. What is it, Tanta? You have been amusing the child?"

This was carrying the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance.

"_Nee_--_nee_! I have not been amusing anybody," replied the old lady very testily. "I do not know what girls are coming to in these days-- jabbering nothing but English--a tongue only fit for baboons--and laughing at their elders."

"Softly, softly, Tanta. There is an Englishman here!" expostulated Stephanus, with a wink at Colvin.

"_Ja_, I know there is," was the still more testy reply. "But he is not like other Englishmen. His name is Calvin. He is of the family of that good man Calvinus, who burnt ever so many Roman Catholics. He did. Ask Mynheer if he did not. I have heard him say so ever so many times, both in church and out. And he ought to know. I have been telling this Englishman I hoped he would ever remember his grandfather's example."

"Let the joke stand, Stephanus," said Colvin in an undertone. "It's about the very best I've heard for such a long time."

But the next utterance put forward by this weird old party was destined to prove somewhat less amusing--to the object thereof, at any rate.

"When is this Englishman going to marry Wenlock's sister?" she blared out, during an interval of profound silence, and talking sublimely past the object of the remark. "When is it to be, Gertruida?"

Poor Mrs De la Rey grew red with confusion.

"What are you saying, Tanta?" she stammered.

"What am I saying? Why, he is engaged to her. Several people have told me. Of course he is. She is the only English girl here, and he is the only Englishman. So of course they are engaged. That settles it."

"But, Tanta, I assure you I am not engaged to anybody," struck in Colvin. Coming on the top of his own meditations only that morning the remark jarred on him. Somehow, being made as it was this evening, it more than doubly jarred on him, why, he could not have told then, but he knew afterwards.

"Not engaged to her?" repeated this antique terror. "Then you ought to be. All young men ought to be married as soon as possible; it is a duty they owe to themselves and the community, and you are rather an old young man. _Nee_, I do not believe you. Your grandfather, the great and good Calvinus, would not have said what was not true; and I have heard this from many people, so it must be true."

"Well, it is not true, Tanta, however many people say it," said Colvin, with emphasis, and an unpleasant consciousness of feeling ever so slightly foolish. Aletta, he could see, was in the wildest throes of suppressed mirth, and Stephanus had to flee the room and go and stand out in the pouring rain and laugh till he cried. "I tell you it is absolutely true that I am not engaged to anybody, and am not in the least likely to be."

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, nephew," retorted the old woman, whacking the floor with her stick. "What do you suppose the good God gave you health and strength for--"

"No, this is getting too thick," said Colvin in an undertone.

"Good-night, Tanta. I want to see Stephanus upon some very important business before he goes to bed. Good-night"; and he made for the door.

The old woman subsided, nodded a little, and then made up her mind to go to bed. When she had done so Colvin returned, accompanied by Stephanus. Aletta's bright face lit up at sight of him, and with the consciousness that she could now laugh unrestrained.

"Upon my word, Miss De la Rey," he said, "your respected relative is something of a terror. First, she wants to make me three or four hundred years old by assigning me for grandfather some historic old bore who flourished in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, I forget which. Then she is eager to rush me into a haphazard matrimonial contract. No, really it is laying it on just a little too thick."

"Oh, it was awfully funny. But, do you know, Mr Kershaw, we had heard just the same thing? _We_ didn't tell her, you know, but we had heard it," said Aletta, her face brimming over with mischief.

"Well, you heard what has no foundation in fact, what is entirely untrue," he answered, with some vague stirring over the emphasis wherewith he did answer, remembering the psychological moment of two or three nights ago.

"You met the Patriot here not long since, did you not, Mr Kershaw?" said Aletta, changing the subject with perfect ease.

"Which Patriot? There are so many patriots now," he replied.

"Why, _the_ Patriot. The one from Pretoria, of course."

"Andries Botma? Oh yes, I met him. We had some very interesting talk together. I had long wanted to see him."

"But--but--you are not of us," said the girl, looking up quickly from her work-basket.

"This little girl is a red-hot patriot, Colvin," said Stephanus, resting a large hand lightly upon the silky brown coil. "But, to be serious, I hope this will all quiet down and find its level."

"Of course; are we not all jolly good friends together, Stephanus? We don't want to be at each other's throats at the bidding of other people."

This remark brought Aletta up.

"But you said you had long wanted to meet the Patriot, Mr Kershaw. Why did you want to see him, then?"

"Because he is something unique--a really honest agitator. He means what he says and believes every word of it most thoroughly. He is full of _verve_ and fire--in a word, a strong man. His is an immensely striking personality."

"Well done, well done," cried Aletta, clapping her hands enthusiastically. "I shall make a convert of you yet. Oh yes, I shall."

It became bedtime. As she gave him his candle Colvin once more could not help being struck with the refined grace of Aletta's every movement--the soft, clear, thoroughbred tone of her voice. She seemed somehow to have been cast in a different mould from her sisters, to whom he had always pictured her as inferior both in looks and presence. It fairly puzzled him. The tones of her voice seemed to linger long after he had retired. He had had a long, tiring, exciting day--had undergone a very narrow escape for his life--which circumstance, by the way, he had not yet mentioned to his host, being desirous to sleep on it first, and having enjoined strict silence upon his retainer--yet, now that he should have dropped into a sound, recuperative slumber, he could not. And the sole reason that he could not--as he must perforce admit to himself in the darkness and privacy of his chamber--was the recollection of this girl whom he had met but the first time that night--here, on a remote Dutch farm in the Wildschutsbergen. And she was "only a Boer girl!"