NO WOMAN'S LAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 10

NO WOMAN'S LAND

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT COPYRIGHT

BY

JANE ENGLAND

(Author of “Sjambok,” “Trader’s Lie ense,” &c.)

CHAPTER V. (Continued.) “Look here,” said David in a matte: of fact tone, “if I were you, I shouldn’ talk like that. I think I hear the boj bringing scoff. But about Fellowes, if I were you, I shouldn’t talk so much about him. He’s a good chap, and you don’t want to get him into a bother. Look here, pull yourself together there’s a good girl. And as for people hating you, I’ll hate you like hell ii you go on like this. So will Dolly. Chuck it.” She lifted her head and gaped at him “And here’s Jacob,” said David “Jacob, you prune, how long does if take you to produce a boiled egg ano’ some coffee? No, don’t bother to roll your eyes and say ‘Baas’ in an injured voice. Put the stuff down —and go away.” “Do you think,” said Nella in a queer, squeaky voice, “that they will arrest Archie?”

“Don’t be a fool!” said Hastings. “All I want to point out to you at the moment is that this is a land of rumours. ‘Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished?’' I’ll tell you, its bred in the Klinter’s Dorp Club; and unless you want Archie Fellowes and yourself to be the centre of a lot of silly chatter, you’ll stop talking in that dramatic way. There’s nothing dramatic about it. But if you want people sniggering and talking, and if you'wanf Archie Fellowes to have to explain away a lot of nonsense, you’ll go on babbling about .quarrels and the people you hate. By the way, has it occurred to you that you have also done your fair share of hating?” “But I have a very good reason,” said Nella sulkily. “Hate breeds hate,” said David sententiously. “Now look here, we’d both better have some food.

Nella ■ sat on the stoep on a long steamer-chair that Dolly had brought out from England. She sat upright and hugged her knees, and thought. As she had very truly said to David Hastings, she thought too much. She began to think about the Hastings. In some strange, inverted way, she regarded them as undesirable. Their kindness to her struck her as peculiar. The way they talked, the way they behaved. The way they had accepted her. It struck her as being all wrong. It meant that, like herself, they were on the wrong ■ side of the fence. Deep down inside her she had a desperate, childish longing to be accepted by the farmers’ wives, by Mrs Carfrae, by all those successful, stolid people. They refused to accept her, but the Hastings did so without fuss. She was grateful, in a resentful way, to the Hastings, but she set no value on their friendship. All her values were confused. She was frightened, and she had no faith in the Hastings. They would not prevail against the real people—against Hudson, against Klinter’s Dorp.

She was convinced, stupidly and blindly, that Archie Fellowes had quarrelled again with her father, shot him, and then burnt down the hut. The thought made her feel sick and faint. She had a vivid vision of herself from now on, earning her living, facing fearful, unknown things, single-handed, against the world. All the trash that she had ever read —trash left by wellmeaning people at her father’s homestead, words she had heard dropped, all these combined to blind her to reality, and filled her mind with fantastic ideas.

Then, as she sat staring out over the bare, dreary • patch of veld, where the sunlight poured down fiercely, and was reflected upwards from the big, grey boulders/ she saw Corporal Hudson riding ./towards the homestead, and a sharp, purely instinctive fear squeezed her heart. She was as much afraid of the police as a slum' .child in England. CHAPTER VI. Nella experienced a pang of sheer, panic. She suddenly felt a wild desire for Hastings to come out to her. But the Hastings had both gone to sleep, and she had seen too little of the outside world to dream of waking them. The Hastings in their bedroom were as remote as if they had been in a fortress with the portcullis drawn up. Hudson rode up to the stoep and dismounted. He was a tall, broad-shoul-dered man with a red face and a waxed moustache. His eyes were brown, and smouldered with a spark of resentment. He found that the Rhodesians were an unaccountable people who would accept some young pup of a trooper because he had been to a public school in England, or had an easy manner, but with himself they were unforthcoming, to say the least. His manner varied abruptly from the official, to the foully familiar. “Ah, Miss Howard,” he said loudly and importantly. Nella jumped to her feet and retreated towards the sitting room. ‘Now, Miss Howard,” said Hudson loudly, “just a minute, please. I have a few questions to ask you.” He looped the reins over his horse’s head, so that they dangled, towards the ground; and the animal began to snuff hopefully at the barren soil. Nella got right into the sitting room. She showed every feign of being a frightened animal. Hudson marched up the step of the stoep, his spurs jingling, and followed Nella. For a moment his extra-broad shoulders shut out the light, and darkened the room. “Now, Miss Howard, I should just like a few particulars from you about this —hrrumph —about this sad business.” “I don’t know anything about it,” said Nefla. “Now sit down,” said Hudson, “and don’t worry yourself. Just tell me exactly what happened when you got to the scene of the—er—the tragedy, and found young Mr Fellowes there.”

“I didn’t meet him there,” said Nella desperately. “I met him galloping for help.”

“For help, eh?” said Hudson, “bit late in the day, or rather in the night wasn’t it?”

“He didn’t get there until after the fire had begun,” said Nella, and her face went milk white.

“Didn’t he, ‘■then?” said Hudson. “Well now, let’s see. Now Miss Howard, can you tell me what his quarrel was with your father?”

“He didn’t have a quarrel,” cried Nella wildly. Hudson thrust his head forward, and his small brown eyes smouldered viciously.

“Didn’t have a quarrel. Hmmm. Oh, come, Nella —er —Miss Howard. We know all about the quarrels with your father.”

“I tell you ” began Nella, when the right hand door opened, and David Hastings cartie out. “What the blazes do you think you’re doing here?” he asked. He had just got out of bed, and had pulled on a black silk dressing gown over his green pyjamas. To Hudson, he looked like the epitome ,of decadence, of undesirability. Appearing like that in mixed company! Not, of course, that you needed to be so particular about the Howard girl; but the chap’s wife was in the house. It just showed you. what sort of people they were.

“I have a few questions to ask Miss Howard,” he said, “about this murder.” “Murder? What are you talking about?” said David; and he took two long strides into the room. - “What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing? Get out of here. Do you hear what I say? Get out of here.” In the bedroom, Dolly was awake. She had been reft from her dreams by the same sound that had made David fall out- of bed, Hudson’s voice.

Any fully dressed person anywhere has an advantage over someone only half-dressed; but in Rhodesia, that advantage was stupendous. She leapt from the edge of the bed, and dressed furiously and briefly. Hudson was holding his ground. He* stood back against the french windows, and the only thing that failed to give the scene perfection, thought Dolly, was a notebook. Most certainly he should have had a note-book in his hand, and a stub of pencil which he ought to lick. “If you don’t get out of here,” David was' saying, “I’ll throw you out. And you can run me for anything you like. I’m pretty darned sure that you’re not allowed to walk into a private house like this.” . s

“What is all this?” said Dolly coldly. Hudson relaxed from his dangerous attitude, and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mrs Hastings,” he said, “but I was only doing my duty.” “If you say ‘The law must take its course,’ ” observed David, “you’ll be thrown out, whether or no.” ■

Dolly looked at Hudson bleakly. She was considering ironically the difference in his manner when he spoke to her and when he spoke to Nella; and presumably the man considered that he was being police. “I’m Mrs Hastings,” she thought, “so his difference in manner to me he labels ‘Chivalry.’ But to Nella . . well ...” She spoke in a polite, thin voice. “Corporal Hudson, Miss Howard will be in Klinter’s Dorp this afternoon for her father’s funeral. If there are any really necessary questions, you can ask them there. At the moment, she cannot speak to you, and . . ” and here she cast him a cold and fleeting smile. “I am afraid that we must ask you to go. I am quite sure that Major Carfrae will tell us this afternoon whether there is really any great need to bother Miss Howard.” “It makes no difference to me,” said Corporal Hudson heavily. “I just thought it would simplify things.” “Panting for a little publicity, aren’t you?” said David pleasantly. “Well now, pop off.” “In case you don’t understand my husband’s slang,” added Dolly, “he means that he wants you to go.” “Yes, I did understand that, Mrs Hastings,” said Hudson nastily. “Well, then,” said Dolly, and turned towards Nella with the air of one who has just cleared up something slightly unpleasant. Hudson backed on to the verandah. “The correct come-back,” David informed him, “is ‘you’ll hear more of this.’ ” Hudson turned and stalked down the steps. The funeral was over, and the sun was sinking rapidly behind the bald plain that bounded Klinter’s Dorp. It had been an impressive affair, thought Dolly bitterly. Major Carfrae intoning the service; and all Klinter’s Dorp present. But now, already, as they trooped back down the scarlet-washed street from the small graveyard, they were disintegrating. Washing their hands like Pilate, of any responsibility for the living white girl, Nella Howard, the daughter of the white Inkoos they had just buried. All of them, the whole damned lot of them, except young Fingall, the police trooper, and, strangely enough, Mrs Carfrae! Hudson stalked off to the" Magistrate’s office. The other men scurried back to their places of business. Too early, and a bit indecent, to make for the Club at once. But Mrs Carfrae, after a moment’s hesitation, came up to Dolly and Nella. And behind her, walked young Fingall, his hat in his hand, and his young, smooth face, solemn and perturbed. As Mrs Carfrae spoke to Dolly, young Fingall edged round to Nella’s side. “I’m so sorry, Miss Howard,” he said. Nella looked at him blankly, and then her mouth twitched, and tears sprang into her eyes.

She was wearing a black frock that Dolly had unearthed from somewhere or other, and a small black hat. The clothes didn’t ’really fit her, and shoes had been a problem. Her feet, used to the freedom of canvas shoes, were too large; and Dolly had spent a hectic quarter of an hour in mutilating a pair of black suede pumps so that they should go on with some decency. “It’s all right,” she said gruffly and awkwardly. “That swine Hudson!” thought young Fingall, for he knew only too well what Hudson was saying to Major Carfrae in the Magistrate’s office. He thought it was a pity that Archie Fellowes had not turned up foi’ the funeral; it must look bad, he thought; though why, he hadn’t clearly 'resolved in his mind. "Won’t you come into my house for a little while?” Mrs Carfrae was saying. “You will be quiet there. And I am afraid that my husband feels that he must see Miss Howard before she leaves Klinter’s Dorp this evening.” And she added under her breath to Dolly (as she saw that for the moment Nella Howard was talking to the young police trooper): “What is going to happen to the girl? You have been very good and kind, but, of course, you can’t be saddled with her indefinitely, Mrs Hastings.” She was a tall, good-looking woman, with a weather-beaten face, and a high-bridged nose. She had an air of authority about her, and now she turned to Nella. “Come along, my dear,” she said, “This has been a very trying experience, a very sad experience, for you. You have been very brave, and you must go on being brave. We are going down to my house to wait for my husband.” “Thank you,” said Nella, with the first genuine streak of fervour that Dolly had ever seen her show. “If Nella is going with you,” said Dolly thoughtfully, “I think I will go to the C]ub and meet my husband. I have an idea that he wants to speak to me.” Dolly started to walk towards the Club, kicking her toes into the dusty, red ground like a small and naughty child. Suddenly she became -aware of someone treading nervously at her heels. It was young Fingall. (To be Continued.)