"Now, you don"t say!" said Nancy with scorching irony. Then, banging her irons, she added, "I"m not much of a woman for a man myself. They"re only poor helpless creatures anyway, and I don"t approve of them. But if I was for putting up with one of the sort, he wouldn"t have legs and arms like a dolly, and a face like curds and whey, and coat and trousers that loud you can hear them coming up the street."
With this parting shot at Ross Christian, Nancy flung into the house, thinking she had given Kate a dressing that she would never forget.
Kate was radiant. Such abuse was honey on her lips, such scoldings were joy-bells in her ears. She took silent delight in provoking these attacks. They served her turn both ways, bringing her delicious joy at the praise of Philip, and at the same time preserving her secret.
VII.
Latter that day Caesar came in from the mill with the startling intelligence that Philip was riding up on the highroad.
"Goodness mercy!" cried Nancy, and she fled away to wash her face.
Grannie with a turn of the hand settled her cap, and smoothed her grey hair under it. Kate herself had disappeared like a flash of light; but as Philip dismounted at the gate, looking taller, and older, and paler, and more serious, but raising his cap from his fair head and smiling a smile like sunshine, she was coming leisurely out of the porch with a bewitching hat over her wavy black hair and a hand-basket over her arm.
Then there was a little start of surprise and recognition, a short catch of quick breath and nervous salutations.
"I"m going round to the nests," she said. "I suppose you"ll step in to see mother."
"Time enough for that," said Philip. "May I help you with the eggs first? Besides, I"ve something to tell you."
"Is it that you"re "admitted?"" said Kate.
"That"s nothing," said Philip. "Only the A B C, you know. Getting ready to begin, so to speak."
They walked round to the stackyard, and he tied up his horse and gave it hay. Then, while they poked about for eggs on hands and knees among the straw, under the stacks and between the bushes, she said she hoped he would have success, and he answered that success was more than a hope to him now--it was a sort of superst.i.tion. She did not understand this, but looked up at him from all fours with brightening eyes, and said, "What a glorious thing it is to be a man!"
"Is it?" said Philip. "And yet I remember somebody who said she wasn"t sorry to be a girl."
"Did I?" said Kate. "But that was long ago. And _I_ remember somebody else who pretended he was glad I was."
"That was long ago too," said Philip, and both laughed nervously.
"What strange things girls are--and boys!" said Kate with a matronly sigh, burying her face in a nest where a hen was clucking and two downy chicks were peeping from her wing.
They went through to the orchard, where the trees were breaking into eager blossoms.
"I"ve another letter for you from Pete," said Philip.
"So?" said Kate.
"Here it is," said Philip.
"Won"t you read it?" said Kate.
"But it"s yours; surely a girl doesn"t want anybody else----"
"Ah! but you"re different, though; you know everything--and besides--read it aloud, Philip."
With her basket of eggs on one arm, and the other hand on the outstretched arm of an apple-tree, she waited while he read:
"Dearest Kitty,--How"s yourself, darling, and how"s Philip, and how"s Grannie? I"m getting on tremendous. They"re calling me Captain now--Capt"n Pete. Sort of overseer at the Diamond Mines outside Kimberley. Regular gentleman"s life and no mistake. Nothing to do but sit under a monstrous big umbrella, with a paper in your fist, like a chairman, while twenty Kaffirs do the work. Just a bit of a tussle now and then to keep you from dropping off. When a Kaffir turns up a diamond, you grab it, and mark it on the time-sheet against his name.
They"ve got their own outlandish ones, but we always christen them ourselves--Sixpence, Seven Waistcoats, Shoulder-of-Mutton, Twopenny Trotter--anything you like. When a Kaffir strikes a diamond, he gets a commission, and so does his overseer. I"m afraid I"m going to be getting terrible rich soon. Tell the old man I"ll be buying that har-monia yet.
They are a knowing lot, though, and if they can get up a dust to smuggle a stone when you"re not looking, they will. Then they sell it to the blackleg Boers, and you"ve got to raise your voice like an advocate to get it back somehow. But the Boers can"t do no harm to you with their fists at all--it"s playing. They"re a dirty lot, wonderful straight like some of the lazy Manx ones, especially Black Tom. When they see us down at the river washing, they say, "What dirty people the English must be if they have to wash themselves three times a day--we only do it once a week." When a Kaffir steals a stone we usually court-martial him, but I don"t hold with it, as the floggers on the compound can"t be trusted; so I always lick my own n.i.g.g.e.rs, being more kinder, and if anybody does anything against me, they lynch him."
Kate made a little patient sigh and turned away her head, while Philip, in a halting voice, went on--
"Darling Kitty, I am longing mortal for a sight of your sweet face. When the night comes, and I"ll be lying in the huts--boards on the ground, and good canvas, and everything comfortable--says I to the boys, "Shut your faces, men, and let a poor chap sleep;" but they never twig the darkness of my meaning. I"ll only be wanting a bit of quiet for thinking of.... with the stars atwinkling down.... She"s looking at that one....
Shine on my angel...."
"Really, Kate," faltered Philip, "I can"t----"
"Give it to me, then," said Kate.
She was tugging with her trembling hand at the arm of the apple-tree, and the white blossom was raining over her from the rowels of the thin boughs overhead, like silver fish falling from the herring-net. Taking the letter, she glanced over the close--
"darlin Kirry how is the mackral this saison and is the millin doing middling and I wonder is the hens all layin and is the grace gone out of the mares leg yet and how is the owl man and is he still playin hang with the texes. Theer is a big chap heer that is strait like him he hath swallowed the owl Book and cant help bring it up agen but dear Kirry no more at present i axpect to be Home sune bogh, to see u all tho I dont no azactly With luv your luving swateart peat."
When she had finished the letter, she turned it over in her fingers, and gave another patient little sigh. "You didn"t read it as it was spelled, Philip," she said.
"What odds if the spelling is uncertain when the love is as sure as that?" said Philip.
"Did he write it himself, think you?" said Kate.
"He signed it, anyway, and no doubt indited it too; but perhaps one of the Gills boys held the pen."
She coloured a little, slipped the letter down her dress into her pocket, and looked ashamed.
VIII.
This shame at Pete"s letter tormented Philip, and he stayed away again.
His absence stimulated Kate and made Philip himself ashamed. She was vexed with him that he did not see that all this matter of Pete was foolishness. It was absurd to think of a girl marrying a man whom she had known when he was a boy. But Philip was trying to keep the bond sacred, and so she made her terms with it. She used Pete as a link to hold Philip.
After the lapse of some months, in which Philip had not been seen at Sulby, she wrote him a letter. It was to say how anxious she had been at the length of time since she had last heard from Pete, and to ask if he had any news to relieve her fears. The poor little lie was written in a trembling hand which shook honestly enough, but from the torment of other feelings.
Philip answered the letter in person. Something had been speaking to him day and night, like the humming of a top, finding him pretexts on which to go; but now he had to make excuses for staying so long away. It was evening. Kate was milking, and he went out to her in the cowhouse.
"We began to think we were to see no more of you," she said, over the rattle of the milk in the pail.
"I"ve--I"ve been ill," said Philip.
The rattle died to a thin hiss. "Very ill?" she asked.
"Well, no--not seriously," he answered.
"I never once thought of that," she said. "Something ought to have told me. I"ve been reproaching you, too."