The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 47
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"That pair over there would keep your ears warm in a blizzard, I war rand Jordan blushed and quickly made his way back to join his master, as the girls crowded about the carriage and the mules were reduced to a walk.
One of the girls recognized Mr. Rhodes.
"Lodzi!" she called, and her cry was taken up by the others.
"Lodzi! Lodzi!" Then they saw Louise. "Balela, we see you. Welcome, Balela," they sang, clapping and swaying. "Welcome, the One who brings Clear and Sunny Skies." Then they recognized Zouga, and they cried, "Come in peace, the Fist." And then to Ralph, "We see you, little Hawk, and our eyes are white with joy." Zouga lifted his hat and waved it over his head. "By God," he murmured to Louise, "I wish Labouche and the damned Aborigine Protection Society could be here to see this."
"They are happy and secure as they never were under Lobengula's bloody rule," Louise agreed, "this land will be kind to us, I feel it deep in my heart." From the back of his horse, Ralph could look over the heads of the girls. There were very few men in the crowd, and they hung back at the fringe of the press of black bodies. However, a face caught Ralph's attention, a single solemn face amongst all the smiles.
"Bazo!" Ralph called and waved, and the young and una looked at him steadily, still without smiling.
"We will talk later," Ralph shouted, and then he was past, swept along by the throng down the avenue of tall dark green spathodea trees with their flaming orange blossoms.
When they reached the lawns, the dancing black girls fell back, for, by unspoken accord, these were reserved for the white guests.
There were a hundred or so gathered below the wide thatched veranda.
Cathy was there, for she had ridden out three days before to help with the preparations. She was slender and cool in a dress of yellow muslin and the straw hat upon her dark head was wide as a wagon-wheel and loaded with artificial flowers of bright-coloured silk that Ralph had ordered from London.
Jonathan let out a'shriek when he saw Ralph, but Cathy held his hand firmly to prevent him being trampled in the crowd that surged forward to engulf the bridegroom in a storm of greetings and good cheer. Ralph left his horse, and came through the crowd, and Cathy almost lost her hat in the violence of his embrace. She had to snatch desperately at it, and then she froze and the colour drained from her face.
The door of the mule coach had opened, Jordan jumped down and set the step.
"Ralph," Cathy blurted, clinging to his arm. "It's him! What's he doing here?" Mr. Rhodes" bulk had appeared in the doorway of the carriage, and a shocked hush fell upon them all.
"Oh Ralph, what will Mama say? Couldn't you have stopped him?"
"Nobody stops him," Ralph murmured, without releasing her. "Besides this is going to be better than a cock-fight, any day." As he said it, Robyn St. John, drawn by the commotion, came out onto the step of the homestead. Her face, still flushed from the heat of the stove, was radiant with a smile of welcome for her latest guests, but the smile shrivelled when she recognized the man in the doorway of the carriage.
She stiffened, and the flush receded from her face, leaving it icy pale.
"Mr. Rhodes," she said clearly in the silence. "I am delighted that you have come to Khami Mission." Mr. Rhodes" eyes flickered as though she had slapped him across the face. He had expected anything but that, and he inclined his head with cautious gallantry, but Robyn went on. "Because it gives me a heaven-sent opportunity to order you not to set a foot over my threshold." Mr. Rhodes bowed with relief, he did not like unresolved positions over which he had no control.
"Let us grant that your jurisdiction reaches that far," he agreed.
"But this side of that threshold, the ground on which I stand belongs to the BSA Company of which I am Chairman.-" "No, sir," Robyn denied hotly, "the Company has granted me the usufruct.-" "A fine legal point."
Mr. Rhodes shook his head gravely. "I will ask my -Administrator to give us a ruling on that." The Administrator was Doctor Leander Starr Jameson. "But in the meantime, I should like to raise a glass to the happiness of the young couple." "I assure you, Mr. Rhodes, that you will not be served refreshment at Khami." Mr. Rhodes nodded at Jordan, and he hurried back to the mule coach. In "a flurry of activity he supervised the uniformed servants who unpacked the camp chairs and tables and placed them in the shade of the tender growth that the spathodea trees had put out since the locust plague.
As Mr. Rhodes and his party settled themselves, Jordan fired the cork from the first bottle of champagne and spilled a frothy deluge into a crystal glass, and Robyn St. John disappeared abruptly from the veranda.
Ralph placed Jonathan in Cathy's arms. "She's up to something," he said, and sprinted across the lawns. He vaulted over the low veranda wall and burst into the livingroom just as Robyn lifted the shotgun down from its rack above the fireplace.
"Aunt Robyn, what are you doing?" "Changing the cartridges, taking out the birdshot and putting in big loopers!" "My darling mother-in-law, you cannot do that," Ralph protested, and edged towards her.
"Not use big loopers?" Robyn circled him warily, keeping out of reach, holding the shotgun with its ornate curly hammers at the level of her chest.
"You cannot shoot him." "Why not?" "Think of the scandal."
"Scandal and I have been travelling companions as long as I can remember." "Then think of the mess, "Ralph urged her.
"I'll do it on the lawn," Robyn said, and Ralph knew that she meant it. He sought desperately for inspiration, and found it.
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