A RAIN-WASHED MORNING AND A DISCUSSION

It was the first rain-washed morning of the wet season when Ailsa Grenville heard the news, through a letter from Diana.

And the first rain-washed morning is an epoch in the Rhodesian year; therefore it cannot be dismissed with a curt announcement.

All night long the vigorous, boisterous spring-cleaning had been in progress. Ailsa, snug in her little bed, with the rain slashing and banging and pounding on the corrugated-iron roof, and the trees swishing and swaying, and the wind rushing around like a mad thing, apparently from all four corners of the earth at once, had laughed softly to herself at the commotion Mother Nature was making upon the dusty, dishevelled, rubbish-strewn land. It was as if, having been very busy elsewhere for three months, she meant to stand no nonsense now, but get the whole country furbished up in one night. What a time they were having, those dusty, untidy-looking trees! Bucket after bucket, millions of buckets as big as a house, full of delicious rain-water, flung at their heads! And the dusty, disgraceful roads swept bare, with gallons upon gallons of water driving their refuse hither and thither, all of it, as if mightily ashamed of itself, scrambling along in masses; and, of course, in its haste choking up the drains, and becoming a serious hindrance until a veritable water-spout was necessary to clear the course.

And then the dead branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night. Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree’s groaning, or its crackling cries of protest.

And the little river-beds and stream-beds, carelessly left to get filled up with dead leaves and rank grass, such a turning out for them as the resistless water was driven in sweeping streams along their bosoms! And woe betide any carelessly thatched or unsightly roofs! Off they went, away with the general medley. The coming summer would have none of them. And the granite, which had allowed dust and dirt and dead grasses to accumulate upon it, how it got its face scrubbed and washed that first night, and the wind shrieking with glee all the time, dashing the sheets of rain against it with its whole might!

But, of course, one could tell that everything liked it. The laughter in the trees and the wind was quite distinct, and the little rivers were fairly shouting with joy. It was not their fault that all that piece of the earth had grown so dusty and untidy; it was Mother Nature’s own fault for being so long coming with those big buckets of hers. How could any land, however willing, look spruce and green and clean with no rain for four months? No wonder there was such a commotion, and it was such a noisy, vigorous business, when at last the rain did come! Every tree and every blade and every flower had a special little life-plan of its own to carry out, if only it could get enough moisture, to say nothing of all the myriad insects and birds and animals, who were too lackadaisical, after the long, dry heat, to thoroughly begin their summer preparations until the rain came. The activity among the humans, with their gold-mines and farms and fanciful erections, would be nothing, would not be worth mentioning, compared with the activity going on in the hidden world all around them on the morrow. Even the flowers had been chary of wearing their best dresses in such a dusty, untidy world.

But wait till to-morrow, and then see them! Far, far outvying any assembly of Ascot frocks or Lords’ cricket week or Henley Sunday. The boisterous rain was a little severe on the dainty blossoms, but one may be sure they bore it with the pluckiest patience, whispering to each other gleefully about the lovely frocks they were going to wear the next day. And there would be such eager, joyful cogitations in the bosoms of all the little males anxious to be off on their spring courting affairs. How could any self-respecting young cock bird or male insect go and pay his addresses in a dusty, dirty, faded coat? Of course, it wasn’t to be thought of. The other chap, who waited, would get all the running. But to-morrow there would be no further need to wait at all. Plumage and coats would be spring-cleaned, and expectations for the coming summer of the highest. Well-filled storehouses, leaf-cosy nests, glorious hunting-grounds. Never mind these boisterous winds and the violent way they hurl the rain about; sit tight and make lovely plans for to-morrow.

Ailsa, snug in her little bed, thought happily about the earth and its glad renewing, and woke up her precious Billy to say, “Are you awake, Billy? Can you hear it?... We shan’t know our little world to-morrow.”

And Billy, who was sometimes of a very prosaic turn of mind, answered, with a grunt, “Just in time to save that top patch of mealies and the bed of onions, by Jove!...” and then rolled over and went to sleep again.

“Bother your onions and mealies,” said his adoring wife. “The world wasn’t made for you to grow vegetables in!...”

But the next morning they climbed a kopje together, just for the joy of it, and laughed softly, and exclaimed in hushed voices at all the wonder outspread.

Such a glorious new heaven and new earth! In the heaven a rain-washed sky, resplendent with armaments of fairy cloud-vessels sailing across deepest, loveliest blue. On the earth every leaf and every blade flashing light, as if it had a little sun of its own; every flower in its loveliest court dress; the very stones gay with beautiful shades of lichen; the granite kopjes in the distance, with their faces so thoroughly scrubbed, gleaming with the dazzling brightness of new-fallen snow. Dark, rich soil where the plough had been, renewed with the richness of velvet. Sullen, colourless veldt, radiant in a few short hours with the first outposts of its coming spring glory. Far, blue hills, bluer and intenser than ever in the rain-washed atmosphere. Little cock birds and male insects away off soon after sunrise about those courting affairs that had been delayed. A whole world rejoicing; a whole world singing Te Deums of praise and thanksgiving in its own dear, happy, overflowing way.

No wonder the big fellow in the well-worn khaki, with his vigorous enthusiasms and wide sympathies, thought a little regretfully of the hide-bound, clause-bound, doctrine-bound, sober-minded black cloth he had felt himself obliged to put off. Would humanity ever sing again as the sons of the morning? Ever burst into Te Deums of overflowing thanksgiving to the Giver of all good, such as echoed and re-echoed from a long-parched earth on its first rain-washed morning.

Well, he could but try to keep the long face and depressing atmosphere and thin air of superiority safely out of his own little sphere, and while he taught the natives to be active, useful members of society, try to help all the settlers about him, hard cases or otherwise, to be honest, fearless, clean-living men, whether they achieved it to the accompaniment of good round oaths and a Sunday morning spent in bed, or on their knees between consecrated walls in the accepted way. Of course, he liked them to come to his little stone tabernacle with its thatched roof, and he made his service just as attractive as ever he could on their behalf; but if they were too lazy or too busy to come well, it didn’t follow they couldn’t be honest, clean-living fellows without it; so then he went to them, and sat over their camp fire, and told them a good story or two, and in the end there wasn’t a camp within twelve miles where the “bloomin’ sky pilot” wasn’t one of the most welcome guests.

But to do them justice, they mostly liked going to his little tabernacle, for it was always a pleasant meeting-place, and men in exile, even “hard cases,” like to sing a good old-fashioned hymn just once in a way; to say nothing of the big home-made cake, full of plums, which was usually ready to be handed round afterwards on the “sky pilot’s” verandah, and which he teasingly informed Ailsa was her way of bribing his congregation to come to church, rather than suffer the ignominy of hearing him preach to empty benches.

But that was as it might be; anyhow, if a settler within reach chanced to be ill, he might be sure he would get a jelly or soup or milk, even if he had never put a foot inside the little wilderness church. And if Billy could not take it The Kid or Moore had to, for Ailsa ruled her little sphere with a rod of iron, and the two troopers had long been her willing slaves.

But though she had cut herself adrift from the pleasant world of her girlhood, and won a real satisfaction out of life that would be death to most women, she had never lost her sympathies with all that went on in that existence, where

Life treads on life
And heart on heart;
We press too close in church and mart
To keep a dream or grave apart.

And when they came back from their ramble on that joyous morning, Dianas letter caused a shadow to come over all the sunlight, and a quick anxious ache to grow up in her heart. After baldly stating the news of Meryls engagement her cousin wrote:

“Was it you, or was it that bearish policeman, who suggested to such a dreamer as Meryl the desirability of a martyr’s crown?... She is far better suited to love in a cottage and babies, but just because that is the case and it is easy to obtain, she chooses to break her heart on some vague altar of sacrifice. I have no patience with these high-falutin ideas myself, nor with the cottage and babies either, for the matter of that; but I suppose a few people had to be practical and selfish and commonplace, to keep the world going round without violent bumps and jerks. Don’t send Meryl congratulations; send her an In Memoriam card. Believe me, it is better suited to the auspicious occasion.”

Ailsa showed the letter to her husband, feeling that it was the worst news she had had for many years. “What does it mean, Billy?... What can have influenced her?... My sweet Meryl! What is it?... What can it be?... that keeps Major Carew so aloof? It was easy to see how they attracted each other.”

“He is a proud man,” her husband said, gravely. “It is not easy for a proud man with nothing to choose a wife with a large fortune.”

“Ah, but there is something more,” she cried, “it cannot be only that. What has kept him so reserved in every particular all these years?”

But Grenville could not help her, and all the afternoon she worried and fretted in silence.

In the evening she said to him anxiously, after again discussing the news, “Mrs. Fleetwood has often asked me to visit her in Salisbury. Shall I go now? Perhaps if I could get Major Carew to talk?...”

“You will never get him to talk,” with quiet conviction.

“Nevertheless, my husband, I feel I must try. We have so much, you and I. One can but make the effort.”

She got up from her chair and went round to him, and climbed on to his knee and hid her face, because she was troubled and unhappy.

“Tell me something I can do to help them, Billy?” she pleaded.

He fondled her hair in silence a moment, and then, because he thought it might comfort her afterwards to know she had tried, he said, “There is no harm in your going to Mrs. Fleetwood’s. I think the change would do you good.”

And Ailsa went to bed a little comforted that at least he sanctioned her journey.