Gregory Rose Finds His Affinity
The new man, Gregory Rose, sat at the door of his dwelling, his arms folded, his legs crossed, and a profound melancholy seeming to rest over his soul. His house was a little square daub-and-wattle building, far out in the karoo, two miles from the homestead. It was covered outside with a sombre coating of brown mud, two little panes being let into the walls for windows. Behind it were the sheep-kraals, and to the right a large dam, now principally containing baked mud. Far off the little kopje concealed the homestead, and was not itself an object conspicuous enough to relieve the dreary monotony of the landscape.
Before the door sat Gregory Rose in his shirt-sleeves, on a camp-stool, and ever and anon he sighed deeply. There was that in his countenance for which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and again he looked at the little kopje, at the milk-pail at his side, and at the brown pony, who a short way off cropped the dry bushes--and sighed.
Presently he rose and went into his house. It was one tiny room, the whitewashed walls profusely covered with prints cut from the "Illustrated London News", and in which there was a noticeable preponderance of female faces and figures. A stretcher filled one end of the hut, and a rack for a gun and a little hanging looking-glass diversified the gable opposite, while in the centre stood a chair and table. All was scrupulously neat and clean, for Gregory kept a little duster folded in the corner of his table- drawer, just as he had seen his mother do, and every morning before he went out he said his prayers, and made his bed, and dusted the table and the legs of the chairs, and even the pictures on the wall and the gun-rack.
On this hot afternoon he took from beneath his pillow a watch-bag made by his sister Jemima, and took out the watch. Only half past four! With a suppressed groan he dropped it back and sat down beside the table. Half- past four! Presently he roused himself. He would write to his sister Jemima. He always wrote to her when he was miserable. She was his safety- valve. He forgot her when he was happy; but he used her when he was wretched.
He took out ink and paper. There was a family crest and motto on the latter, for the Roses since coming to the colony had discovered that they were of distinguished lineage. Old Rose himself, an honest English farmer, knew nothing of his noble descent; but his wife and daughter knew-- especially his daughter. There were Roses in England who kept a park and dated from the Conquest. So the colonial "Rose Farm" became "Rose Manor" in remembrance of the ancestral domain, and the claim of the Roses to noble blood was established--in their own minds at least.
Gregory took up one of the white, crested sheets; but on deeper reflection he determined to take a pink one, as more suitable to the state of his feelings. He began:
"Kopje Alone, "Monday afternoon.
"My Dear Jemima--"
Then he looked up into the little glass opposite. It was a youthful face reflected there, with curling brown beard and hair; but in the dark blue eyes there was a look of languid longing that touched him. He re-dipped his pen and wrote:
"When I look up into the little glass that hangs opposite me, I wonder if that changed and sad face--"
Here he sat still and reflected. It sounded almost as if he might be conceited or unmanly to be looking at his own face in the glass. No, that would not do. So he looked for another pink sheet and began again.
"Kopje Alone, "Monday afternoon.
"Dear Sister,--It is hardly six months since I left you to come to this spot, yet could you now see me I know what you would say, I know what mother would say--'Can that be our Greg--that thing with the strange look in his eyes?'
"Yes, Jemima, it is your Greg, and the change has been coming over me ever since I came here; but it is greatest since yesterday. You know what sorrows I have passed through, Jemima; how unjustly I was always treated at school, the masters keeping me back and calling me a blockhead, though, as they themselves allowed, I had the best memory of any boy in the school, and could repeat whole books from beginning to end. You know how cruelly father always used me, calling me a noodle and a milksop, just because he couldn't understand my fine nature. You know how he has made a farmer of me instead of a minister, as I ought to have been; you know it all, Jemima; and how I have borne it all, not as a woman, who whines for every touch, but as a man should--in silence.
"But there are things, there is a thing, which the soul longs to pour forth into a kindred ear.
"Dear sister, have you ever known what it is to keep wanting and wanting and wanting to kiss some one's mouth, and you may not; to touch some one's hand, and you cannot? I am in love, Jemima.
"The old Dutchwoman from whom I hire this place has a little stepdaughter, and her name begins with 'E'.
"She is English. I do not know how her father came to marry a Boer-woman.
It makes me feel so strange to put down that letter, that I can hardly go on writing 'E'. I've loved her ever since I came here. For weeks I have not been able to eat or drink; my very tobacco when I smoke has no taste; and I can remain for no more than five minutes in one place, and sometimes feel as though I were really going mad.
"Every evening I go there to fetch my milk. Yesterday she gave me some coffee. The spoon fell on the ground. She picked it up; when she gave it me her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know if I fancied it--I shivered hot, and she shivered too! I thought, 'It is all right; she will be mine; she loves me!' Just then, Jemima, in came a fellow, a great, coarse fellow, a German--a ridiculous fellow, with curls right down to his shoulders; it makes one sick to look at him. He's only a servant of the Boer-woman's, and a low, vulgar, uneducated thing; that's never been to boarding-school in his life. He had been to the next farm seeking sheep.
When he came in she said, 'Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!' AND SHE
KISSED HIM.
