NO WOMAN'S LAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1938, Page 10

NO WOMAN'S LAND

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT COPYRIGHT

BY

JANE ENGLAND

CHAPTER XlV—Continued. “Not going home,” said Dolly. “I’m going to make some respectable people in this district feel sick to their very marrows.” * « * * They don’t give an awful lot oi milk,” said Nella eagerly, “only about half a gallon each, but that won’t be bad. And we could put them in that wired paddock each night ... It only needs the wire mending in a few places. Then they could be milked every morning. I could do that. And you know, if you could make a small oblong mud hut with a good thatch, and made a sort of counter of mud and cement, it would make a good dairy and we could make butter. And I say as I came along, I saw a lovely place for a kitchen garden. If you had a kitchen garden it would be lovely. You could grow lettuces and green peas and all sorts of things. You’ve no idea how things grow out here.” Dolly found herself suffering from a pang of desperate irritation. This talk about kitchen gardens and dairies! As if she was going to be here forever! All she wanted was for Wentworth, who seemed to have disappeared, to solve the mystery of old Howard’s death, and then for Nella Howard to. get settled, so that she herself could go home. “Do they?” said Dolly, unwillingly. “Oh, they do. I’m sure that you could make money out of a kitchen garden. Sell vegetables. I’m sure you could. Nobody out here ever grows vegetables. There was an old Indian once, who had a patch of land behind the store in Klinter’s Dorp, and he made pounds. Only, he died, and now there’s no more vegetables.” “Look here, my dear,” interrupted Dolly, “it’s nearly sundown . . Where’s David, by the way? I haven’t seen him for about five hours.” “He’s down at the drift with the cattle inspector,” said Nella casually. “They were discussing the building of a dip.” “Building a what?” asked Dolly. “A dip, you know. Because if you’re going to have cattle, you must have a dip. I don’t mean just for these few. The cattle inspector has given me a permit, and I can drive them into Klinter’s Dorp and dip them there. But if you’re going to have cattle of your own ...” , “Why should we?” said Dolly furiously. CHAPTER XV. The cattle inspector was ensconced in a chair with a glass by his side. David was sitting on the table with his glass in his hand. Dolly regarded them both with some disgust. “The sun,” she observed, “Is not yet below the horizon.” Tenby stood up. “It’s my fault,” he said, “I arrived here in a desperate state. The veld caught fire over by the Hanslows, and we have a job putting it out.” “It’s a pity you did,” said Dolly vindictively, “I shouldn’t burst into tears if all the Hanslow’s veld got burned.” “So now you know,” said David, “and you sit down and get on with your drink.” “I’ve been talking to your husband about a dip,” said Tenby innocently. “I should think you could build one pretty cheaply with all that loose stone you have about, and if you put it down by the drift you’ll be able to fill it easily.” David shifted slightly on the table and lit "a cigarette, while his wife regarded him coldly. “If we wanted a dip,” she said, sweetly, I should think that that would be the best place. But what do we want one for?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said David, hastily, “we might, you know.” He smiled at her pleasantly, “because it seems to me that we shall be here for a considerable time. I don’t see any chance of Nella leaving us.” Tenby stared at his cigarette. ‘.‘You know,” he said. “I think it was darned decent of you people to look after that kid.” His face lightened again. “Hudson’s gone,” he went on, “he was sick as mud. I met him, and he was spluttering.” “Tell my wife what you’ve been telling me- about cows . . buying cheap and all that,” said David. “It may bring a gleam of interest into her stony eye.” “It won’t,” Dolly assured him. “I’ve heard about them myself. There’s a slump.” “But don’t you see,” said Tenby eagerly, his round face very earnest and his voice rising to an urgeni squeak, “that that’s the point? You buy them now, cheap as dirt. They eat your grass, and then in about five years the price will be all right.” “Five years!” said Dolly. “David give me a drink.” “It might be fun,” murmured David. Tenby looked at him doubtfully. He didn’t quite approve of the idea that cattle were fun. “I’d rather have pigs,” said Dolly with the laudable intention of drawing a red herring across the trail. “Not pigs,” exclaimed Tenby. “Pigs simply don’t pay out here!” “I adore pigs,” said Dolly firmly. “I shall have a piggery. David, will you gc and gaze out over the veld? Nella should be back.” “But pigs,” went on Tenby in distressed tones, “really Mrs Hastings, you’d lose money. You would really.” He became technical about Berkshire Blacks and bacon. Dolly listened politely. She found that Nella weighed on her mind; there was always that faint shadow of the Engleburg boy who might be about. A lunatic Engleburg, or rather an Engleburg who was mad on one subject. “Where is that girl?” she exclaimed suddenly in the middle of an impassioned argument of Tenby’s. He stared at her with round eyes. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “She "only went to the paddock, didn’t she?

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

Good gracious, Mrs Hastings, she’s used to the veld . . . knows more about looking after herself than a lot of men out here.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Dolly, “but . . but I want her to light the lamps.’

To herself, it sounded a particularly futile remarks, and Tenby was obviously completely puzzled. “I’ll light the lamps for you,” he said politely, and got up and did so.

“By the way,” said Nella as she brushed her hair; and Dolly sat curled up on the bed and watched her “I forgot to tell you, but I met a man this afternoon.” “Where?” said Dolly casually. “On my farm. He was riding up from Beeston . . you know the mine that’s about 50 miles south. He wants to., rent my farm. He’ll give me 50 pounds a year.” Dolly sat cross-legged and became aware that her heart was beating very hard. She endeavoured to ignore it. After all, if one was going to get hectic every time one heard of a strange man . . . “What’s his name?” she asked. Though of course it wasn’t likely that Engleburg would use his own name; but why shouM it be Engleburg? “Peter Drew. He was rather nice.” “How old?” said Dolly. “Oh, quite old,” said Nella blithely, “about thirty-five,' I should think. Quite old.” “Senile,” cpmmented Dolly. “Well, what do you want to 1 do about it?” Nella put down the hairbrush and turned round. “Well, I didn’t quite know,” she said. “You see, it depends on you. You see, if you’re not staying here, then I wouldn’t-let him have it, because I’d want it myself. But if you are staying on, then if I had 50 pounds a year . . . I could . . could pay something. If you’d have me.” “Oh,” said Dolly. “Well, I don’t know either, but I shouldn’t be surprised if we stayed on. It looks to me as if things were shaping that way.” “If only you could!” exclaimed Nella, and tlfen stopped short and retreated behind her bird-like antagonism. Asking favours,' begging people to do things!” “Of course, it doesn’t really matter,” she added, and began to pull on the black frock. “No, it doesn’t, does it” said Dolly drily, “not a bit. We’d better go in and eat some food.” Nella followed, looking sulky and brooding. She was thinking about Archie Fellowes, and she despised herself for thinking about him. He had not been near the place for a week, and when he did come all he did was talk to Dolly. Obviously he had never been really in love with her, Nella. Of course not. Otherwise he wouldn’t behave like this. “Hullo, hullo,” cried Tenby, jumping up to greet her, “I say, we do look nice!” ' She smote him with a glacial stare of pure dislike, and he subsided, damped and puzzled, into his chair. * * * Dinner dragged through uncomfortably. Even Tenby’s prattle was quenched. Nella sat hunched in her chair and scowled, and Dolly was 'too occupied with her own thoughts to make any attempt to be social. “Nella,” said David suddenly, “do you know what I should do to you if you were my daughter and you behaved like this? I should smack you hard and send you to bed.” Nella glared at him, hooding her eyes, and stood up. “I’m going to bed,’ she said, and walked very erectly from the room. Dolly came out of her morbid imaginings. “She certainly asked for it,” she observed. Tenby sighed. He was a kind-hearted little man and had frequently done Nella small services. She had not been particularly appreciative, but Tenby did not expect appreciation from the young. “She’s very young,” he murmured. Dolly smiled at him. She liked him, and was sorry for him. Born to be put upon, she considered. And he was kind. (To be Continued).