The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 84
- Предыдущая
- 84/183
- Следующая
Very soon she had realized her own ignorance, and had written to Cape Town and London for books on botany, and for Linnaeus" Systetna Naturae for plants. Using these, she was training herself to become a competent botanist. Already she had isolated eight trees that had not been previously described, and she had named one for Ralph "Terminalia Ralphii" and another for Jonathan who had climbed to the upper branches to bring down its pretty pink flowers for her.
When she diffidently sent some of her dried specimens and a folio of drawings to Sir Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens, she received an encouraging letter, complimenting her on the standard of her artwork and confirming her classifications of the new species. With the letter was an autographed " copy of his Genera Plantmum, "to a fellow student of nature's wonders', and it had become the start of a fascinating correspondence. The new hobby was one that could be practised side by side with Jon-Jon's bird-nesting activities, and it helped fill the dreary days when Ralph was away, although now she had "difficulty keeping up with Jon Jon her swollen belly reducing her to an undignified waddle. She had to leave all the climbing and rock-scrambling to him.
This morning they were working one of the kloofs of the hills above the camp where they had found a beautiful spreading tree with strange candelabra of fruit on the upper branches. Jonathan was twenty feet above ground, edging out to snatch a laden branch when Cathy heard voices calling in the thick bush that clogged the mouth of the kloof.
She swiftly rebuttoned her blouse and dropped her skirts down over her bare legs the heat was oppressive in the confined gulley between the hills and she had been sitting on the bank and dabbling her feet in the trickle of the stream.
"Yoo boo!" she yelled, and the telegraph-operator came sweating and scrambling up the steep side.
He was a dismal shrimp of a man, with a bald head and protruding eyes, but he was also one of Cathy's most fervent admirers. The arrival of a telegraph for her was an excuse for him to leave his hut and seek her out. He waited adoringly with his hat in his hands, as she read the message.
"Passage reserved Union Castle leaving Cape Town for London March 20th stop open envelope and follow instructions carefully stop home soon love Ralph." "Will you send a telegraph for me, Mr. Braithwaite?"
"Of course, Mrs. Ballantyne, it will be *a great pleasure." The little man blushed like a girl and hung his head bashfully.
Cathy wrote out the message recalling, Zouga Ballantyne to King's Lynn on a sheet of her sketch pad and Mr. Braithwaite clutched it to his concave chest like a holy talisman.
"Happy Christmas, Mrs. Ballantyne," he said, and Cathy started.
The days had gone by so swiftly, she had not realized that the year 1895 was so far gone. Suddenly the prospect of Christmas alone in the wilderness, another Christmas with out Ralph, appalled her.
"Happy Christmas, Mr. Braithwaite," she said, hoping he would leave before she began to cry. Her pregnancy made her so weak and weepy if only Ralph would come back. If only... itsani was not a town nor even a village. It was a single trading-store, standing forlornly in the flat P san-dveld on -the edge of the Kalahari Desert that stretched away 1,500 miles into the west.
However, it was only a few miles to the frontier of the Transvaal, but no fence nor border-post marked the division. The country was so flat and featureless and the scrub so low, that the rider could see the trading-store from a distance of seven miles, and around it, shimmering like ghosts in the heat mirage, the little cone-shaped white tents of an army encamped.
The rider had pushed his horse mercilessly along the thirty miles from the railway at Mafeking, for he bore an urgent message. He was an unlikely choice for a peace messenger, for he was'a soldier and a man of action. His name was Captain Maurice Heany, a handsome man with dark hair and moustaches and flashing eyes. He had served with Carrington's horse and the Bechuana police, and in the Matabele war he had commanded a troop of mounted infantry. He was a hawk and he bore the message of a dove. The sentries picked up his dust from two miles out and there was a small bustle as the guard was called out.
When Hearty trotted into the camp all its senior officers were already gathered at the command tent, and Doctor Jameson himself came forward to shake his hand and lead him into the tent where they were screened from curious eyes. Zouga Ballantyne poured Indian tonic onto a dram of gin, and brought it to him.
"Sorry, Maurice, this is not the Kimberley Club, I'm afraid we have no ice." "Ice or not, you have saved my life." They knew each other well. Maurice Heany had been one of Ralph Ballantyne's and Harry Johnston's junior partners when they had contracted to bring the original pioneer column into Mashonaland.
Heany drank and wiped his moustache before looking up at John Willoughby, and the little doctor. He was in a quandary as to whom he should address his message to, for although Willoughby was the regimental commander and Zouga Ballantyne his second-inrcommand, and although Doctor Jameson was officially only a civilian observer, they all knew with whom the ultimate decision-making and authority lay.
Jameson smoothed his embarrassment by ordering directly, "Well then, out with it, man." "It's not good news, Doctor Jim. Mr. Rhodes is utterly determined that you must remain here until after the Reform Committee has captured Johannesburg." "When will that be?" Jameson demanded bitterly. "Just look at these!" He picked up a sheaf of telegraph flimsies from the camp table. "A new telegraph every few hours, in Frank Rhodes" execrable code. Take this one, yesterday."
Jameson read aloud. "It is absolutely necessary to delay floating until company letterhead agreed upon"." Jameson dropped the telegraphs back on the table with disgust. "This ridiculous quibbling over what flag to fly. Damn me, but if -we aren't doing this for the Union Jack, then what are we doing it for?" "It is rather like the timorous bride who, having set the date, views the approach of the wedding day with delicious confusion." Zouga Ballantyne smiled. "You must remember that our friends on the Reform Committee in Johannesburg are more used to stock deals and financial speculation than the use of steel. Like the blushing virgin, they may need a little judicial forcing." "That's it exactly." Doctor Jameson nodded. "And yet Mr. Rhodes is concerned that we should not move ahead of them." "There is one other thing that you should know." Heaney hesitated. "It does seem that the gentlemen in Pretoria are aware that something is afoot. There is even talk that there is- a traitor amongst us." "That is unthinkable," snapped Zouga.
- Предыдущая
- 84/183
- Следующая
