The Rhodesian. Gertrude Page
want to come."
They were sitting in the smoke-room with him, as was often their habit in the evening, preferring it, as he did, to the stately drawing-room.
Meryl sat on a footstool near him, watching his face anxiously, while Diana, with an open book on her knee, listened from the depths of an enormous arm-chair in which she had curled herself.
"Shouldn't we ever need to wash?" she asked suddenly, in a sprightly voice that set them all laughing.
"Well, it's a hot country, you know," said her uncle, "but it might be more or less optional."
"Scrumptious!" and Diana snoozled lower into her chair.
"Uncouth," remarked Aunt Emily, disapprovingly.
"Or do you mean unclean?" enquired the sinner.
"It is quite the maddest idea I ever heard of." Ignoring her, and growing more and more mournful, the poor lady heaved a deep sigh.
"But need you be bothered with us?" enquired Meryl, diplomatically. "Wouldn't you rather have a nice quiet summer in England?"
"And let you go alone? … How could I? … Your father will be much engaged with his business, and it would be most unseemly for two girls of your age to be left so much alone. I believe it is a dreadful country, but if you can face it, I think I can find the courage to come with you."
"Think you can bear it, aunty? … " chirped the voice from the arm-chair, and Meryl frowned in a little aside at the snoozler.
"If they decide to come at all, they would be all right with me out on the veldt," put in Mr. Pym. "If they are prepared to eat 'bully beef' and probably do their own washing-up."
"How horrible! … " from the arm-chair. "It sounds worse than chewing mule harness."
"What do you mean, Diana?" her aunt asked, nervously.
"Oh, didn't you know there was nourishment in mule harness? … It's simply splendid stuff when you've had nothing else for days."
The poor lady shuddered, and her brother chuckled, but Meryl interposed with, "Don't listen to her, Aunt Emily. It isn't likely we shall ever have had nothing for days."
"I once heard of a man … " began the spinster, putting down her work, and raising her head with the air they all knew so well, denoting a long rigmarole about some exceedingly uninteresting person, and Diana immediately chimed in with, "Shall you wear a knickerbocker suit, aunty, or just a commonplace divided skirt?"
"Neither will be in the least necessary," was the decided answer. "I have met people from Rhodesia, and they dress quite ordinarily."
"Oh, that's when they're in another country," insisted the incorrigible. "Up there you simply must wear knickers, or a divided skirt; it's … it's … such a high altitude … and so … windy! … "
"Diana, be quiet," interrupted Meryl, now sitting on the arm of her father's chair. "If you don't mind we shall leave you behind."
"Well, I don't know that I particularly want to go. It doesn't sound very inviting except about the washing."
"I think you had all better take a week to decide in," said Henry Pym, finally. "I won't say anything about the yacht at present, and you can change your minds and have it if you like. And if your aunt chooses to stay quietly in England, I'll take a house for her anywhere she likes, and I'll look after you both myself. You can take care of each other when I have to be absent for a day."
"Would you like us to go?" asked Diana, screwing her head round impishly. "Or are we going to be a … a … frightful nuisance?"
"I'd like you to come, if you can make up your minds thoroughly to take the rough and the smooth together, and make the best of it. I think it will be an experience for you, and a wholesome change from too much luxury. But mind"—and his strong, dark face looked very determined—"I want no grumbling and no fretfulness. If you think you've any real, genuine pioneer spirit in you, come. If you're in doubt about it, stay behind, and go to Norway and have your gaiety."
"I don't think I've very much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off on the niggers."
"Has Meryl a lot of pioneer spirit?" asked her father, watching her with quiet, affectionate eyes.
"Stacks of it. She wants to become an Empire-builder. I don't. I'm bored with the Empire. But I don't mind sampling just one dive into the wilderness, to see how I like primitive conditions. I don't know what Aunt Emily wants with the wilderness though, unless she has a secret fancy for niggers! … "
"I think that is a little coarse of you, Diana. I have no fancy either for a wilderness or niggers; but if either you or Meryl were ill, or anything happened to you, I should never forgive myself had I remained comfortably at home."
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