Blue Aloes | Page 5

even as she had sensed. Small wonder Bernard van Cannan's eyes wore a haunted look! Yet his wife, with her full happy laugh and golden locks, lying among her pillows, seemed curiously untouched by sorrow. Except for that quiver of the eyelids, Christine had never seen her show anything but a contented face to life.
Well--the history of Blue Aloes was a sealed book when the girl came to it, knowing nothing of its inmates beyond their excellent references as an old Huguenot family. Now the book, slowly opening page by page, was revealing strange things.
The luncheon-hour always provided fresh material for a reflective mind. The dining-room was large and lofty, and the table must have dated back to the early days at the Cape, when every great family had its scores of retainers and slaves. It was composed of time-stained teak, and could have seated dozens, being curiously shaped like a capital E with the middle branch of the letter missing. Only one of the branches was now in use, and at this Christine presided over her small charges, fortunately somewhat aloof from the rest, for they had many odd habits which it was her business to correct without drawing attention. Coral did not like pumpkin, and would keep dropping it on the floor. Rita loved to kill flies with a spoon. Roddy's specialty was sliding bits of meat into the open jaws of a pointer--there were always several under the table--then briskly passing his plate for more. Once or twice, looking up from correcting these idiosyncrasies, the girl found the blue eyes of Richard Saltire fixed upon her as if in ironic inquiry, and though she felt the slow colour creep into her face, she returned the glance coldly. How dare he be curious about her, she thought rather angrily. Let him confine himself to making the lids of his hostess droop and her cheeks dimple. Not that Christine believed there to be any harm in their open flirtation--Mrs. van Cannan was plainly devoted to her husband; perhaps it was natural that she should enjoy admiration. She possessed the kind of beauty only to be achieved by the woman who makes the care of her appearance an art, and spends hours in absolute repose of mind and body. Her face had not a line in it of strain or sorrow. Faint pink tinted her cheeks. Her pink-linen gown, open in a low V, showed the perfect contour and creaminess of her breast. The restless, adoring eyes of her husband came back to her always with that glance, vigilant and sombre, that was peculiar to them.
With some assumption of state, he always sat in the centre of the body of the table, with his wife beside him. Saltire sat at her right, and Saxby, the overseer, was placed beside his host. Opposite them, on the other side of the table, were the two young Hollanders and a cheerful Scotch colonial called McNeil.
These six men were expected to take both luncheon and dinner at the farm, but only the Hollanders turned up in the evening, perhaps because the excellence of the fare was outbalanced by the long prayers and hymns with which the meal was prefaced and ended. Even at lunch-time, there was a Bible at the host's elbow, from which he read a number of texts before pronouncing a long grace, while the visitors listened with expressions that varied from embarrassment to impatience. Richard Saltire always looked frankly bored, but sometimes he and Mrs. van Cannan exchanged a smile of sympathy at having to listen to the maledictions of Job while the roast was getting cold. Hymns for lunch were mercifully omitted. Bernard van Cannan, though plainly a religious fanatic, was also the owner of one of the wealthiest farms in the colony, and no doubt he realized that the working-hours of his employees might be more profitably engaged than by chanting hymns.
Saxby, the overseer, a dark, burly man of unusual height, was marked by the thick lips and general fulness of countenance that suggests to those who have lived long enough in Africa "a touch of colour." He had the soft voice, too, and full, deep laugh of those who have a dash of native blood in their veins. His manner was melancholy, though charming, and he imposed his society upon no man, but attended strictly to his business. He was the best manager the farm had ever known. After being there for less than a year, he had so improved the stock and the land that Bernard van Cannan looked upon him as a little god, and his word was law on the farm. His private history, a rather sad one, Christine had already heard from Mrs. van Cannan. It appeared that his wife had been terribly disfigured