When I arrived I found her sitting on the stoep. She looked lonely and
pathetic, and for the first time I wondered why no man had ever taken her and
looked after her and loved her. Mother had told me that Great-aunt Stephina had
been lovely as a young girl, and although no trace of that beauty remained,
except perhaps in her brown eyes, yet she looked so small and appealing that any
man, one felt, would have wanted to protect her.
She paused, as though she did not quite know how to begin.
Then she seemed to give herself, mentally, a little shake. "You must have
wondered ", she said, "why I was so upset at the thought of young George's going
to England without you. I am an old woman, and perhaps I have the silly fancies
of the old, but I should like to tell you my own love story, and then you can
decide whether it is wise for your man to leave you before you are married."
"I was quite a young girl when I first met Richard Weston. He was an
Englishman who boarded with the Van Rensburgs on the next farm, four or five
miles from us. Richard was not strong. He had a weak chest, and the doctors had
sent him to South Africa so that the dry air could cure him. He taught the Van
Rensburg children, who were younger than I was, though we often played together,
but he did this for pleasure and not because he needed money.
"We loved one another from the first moment we met, though we did not speak
of our love until the evening of my eighteenth birthday. All our friends and
relatives had come to my party, and in the evening we danced on the big old
carpet which we had laid down in the barn. Richard had come with the Van
Rensburgs, and we danced together as often as we dared, which was not very
often, for my father hated the Uitlanders. Indeed, for a time he had quarreled
with Mynheer Van Rensburg for allowing Richard to board with him, but afterwards
he got used to the idea, and was always polite to the Englishman, though he
never liked him.
"That was the happiest birthday of my life, for while we were resting between
dances Richard took me outside into the cool, moonlit night, and there, under
the stars, he told me he loved me and asked me to marry him. Of course I
promised I would, for I was too happy to think of what my parents would say, or
indeed of anything except Richard was not at our meeting place as he had
arranged. I was disappointed but not alarmed, for so many things could happen to
either of us to prevent out keeping our tryst. I thought that next time we
visited the Van Ransburgs, I should hear what had kept him and we could plan
further meetings…
"So when my father asked if I would drive with him to Driefontein I was
delighted. But when we reached the homestead and were sitting on the stoep
drinking our coffee, we heard that Richard had left quite suddenly and had gone
back to England. His father had died, and now he was the heir and must go back
to look after his estates.
"I do not remember very much more about that day, except that the sun seemed
to have stopped shining and the country no longer looked beautiful and full of
promise, but bleak and desolate as it sometimes does in winter or in times of
drought. Late that afternoon, Jantje, the little Hottentot herd boy, came up to
me and handed me a letter , which he said the English baas had left for me. It
was the only love letter I ever received, but it turned all my bitterness and
grief into a peacefulness which was the nearest I could get, then, to happiness.
I knew Richard still loved me, and somehow, as long as I had his letter, I felt
that we could never be really parted, even if he were in England and I had to
remain on the farm. I have it yet, and though I am an old, tired woman, it still
gives me hope and courage."
"I must have been a wonderful letter, Aunt Stephia,"I said.
The old lady came back from her dreams of that far-off romance."Perhaps," she
said, hesitating a little, "perhaps, my dear, you would care to read it?"
"I should love to, Aunt Stephia,"I said gently.
She rose at once and tripped into the house as eagerly as a young girl. When
she came back she handed me a letter, faded and yellow with age, the edges of
the envelope worn and frayed as though it had been much handled. But when I came
to open it I found that the seal was unbroken.
"Open it, open it,"said Great-aunt Stephia, and her voice was shaking.
I broke the seal and read.
It was not a love letter in the true sense of the word, but pages of the
minutest directions of how"my sweetest Phina"was to elude her father's
vigilance, creep down to the drift at night and there meet Jantje with a horse
which would take her to Smitsdorp. There she was to go to "my true friend, Henry
Wilson",who would give her money and make arrangements for her to follow her
lover to Cape Town and from there to England ," where, my love, we can he be
married at once. But if, my dearest, you are not sure that you can face lift
with me in a land strange to you, then do not take this important step, for I
love you too much to wish you the smallest unhappiness. If you do not come, and
if I do not hear from you, then I shall know that you could never be happy so
far from the people and the country which you love. If, however, you feel you
can keep your promise to me, but are of too timid and modest a journey to
England unaccompanied, then write to me, and I will, by some means, return to
fetch my bride."
I read no further.
"But Aunt Phina!"I gasped. "Why…why…?"
The old lady was watching me with trembling eagerness, her face flushed and
her eyes bright with expectation."Read it aloud, my dear,"she said."I want to
hear every word of it. There was never anyone I could trust…Uitlanders were
hated in my young days…I could not ask anyone."
"But, Auntie, don't you even know what he wrote?"
The old lady looked down, troubled and shy like a child who has unwittingly
done wrong.
"No, dear," she said, speaking very low." You see, I never learned to
read.
