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Updated: June 8, 2025
She went to help him. Burke kept his seat, the reins taut in his hands. Merston abruptly gripped him by the knee. "Look here, old boy! You must have a drink! Wait where you are while I fetch it!" He was gone with the words, and they were left alone. Sylvia bent over her suit-case, preparing to pick it up. A tumult of strange emotion had swept over her. She was quivering all over.
She said it abruptly, too intent upon the mixing of her cake to look up. There came the sound of wheel and hoofs outside, and Sylvia paused to listen before she replied. "Yes. Kieff is dead." The sound died away in the distance, and there fell a silence. Then, "Killed himself, did he?" asked Mrs. Merston. "I was told so," said Sylvia. "Don't you believe it?" Mrs.
"I don't indulge mine to that extent. Are you going to Brennerstadt for the races next month? Or has the oracle decreed that you are to stay behind?" "I don't know. I didn't know there were any." Sylvia looked out through the mauve-coloured twilight to where Burke stood talking with Merston by one of the hideous corrugated iron cattle-sheds.
So at length they came to the Merstons' farm, and with a mingling of relief and dissatisfaction Sylvia realized that any further discussion was out of the question. Merston came out, full of jovial welcome, to meet them, and in a moment she was glad that she had come. For she saw that he was genuinely pleased to see her. "It's most awfully good of you to come," he said, as he helped her down.
And Piet Vreiboom sat back in his chair and stared at her, till the hot colour rose and spread over her face and neck, and then he puffed forth a cloud of vile smoke and laughed. At that juncture Mrs. Merston came forward with unusual briskness. "You had better go," she said, with great decision. "There is going to be a storm."
The men out here have other things to think about." "I should hope so," said Sylvia energetically. "And the women, too, I should think. I should imagine that there is very little time for philandering out here." Mrs. Merston uttered a bitter laugh as she followed her in. "There is very little time for anything, Mrs. Ranger. It is drudgery from morning till night."
Then, when she had seen him go and the swirling dust had begun to settle again, she turned inwards and proceeded to wash the glass that the Boer had used with an expression of fixed disgust. Suddenly she spoke. "I shouldn't believe anything that man said on oath." "Neither should I," said Sylvia quietly. She did not look up from her task, and Matilda Merston said no more.
Politeness, however, forbade her summarily to drop the subject just started. "Do you go to Brennerstadt for the races?" she asked. "I?" said Mrs. Merston, and laughed again her caustic, mirthless laugh. "No! My acquaintance with Brennerstadt is of a less amusing nature. When I go there, I merely go to be ill, and as soon as I am partially recovered, I come back to this."
He wondered how Sylvia appreciated this form of life in the wilderness. He slowed down the animals to a walk as he neared it, peering about for some sign of its inhabitants. The clouds had scattered, and the son was shining brilliantly behind him. He reflected that Merston was probably out on the lands. His wife would be superintending the preparation of breakfast. And Sylvia
She closed her thin lips without reply, and the downward curve became very unpleasantly apparent. "I haven't found out all its horrors yet," said Sylvia lightly. "It's a very thirsty place, I think, anyway just now. Have you had anything?" "We've only just got here," said Merston. "Oh, I must see to it!" said Sylvia, and hastened within. "Looks a jolly sort of girl," observed Merston to his wife.
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