Маленький Темби - страница 14

«Черные ничего не имеют против тюрьмы. Они не считают ее позором, как мы».

«Но он станет одним из тех негров, у которых вся жизнь проходит от тюрьмы до тюрьмы».

«Ну и что же? — удивился Вилли. Сдерживая раздражение, он, как верный супруг, ласково приподнял Джейн и дал ей свой носовой платок. — Ну, хватит, старушка, — уговаривал он… — Перестань. Я устал, хочу лечь. Весь день я слонялся по этим проклятым мостовым, и завтра мне предстоит такой же тяжелый день из-за табака». Он начал стаскивать сапоги.

Джейн перестала плакать и тоже разделась.

«Во всем этом есть что-то ужасное. Я не могу успокоиться, — сказала Джейн. Она помолчала, а потом добавила: — Чего он от нас хотел, Вилли? Что же это такое? Чего он хотел от нас все это время?»

Jane McCluster, who had been a nurse before she married, started a clinic on the farm within a month of arriving. Though she had been born and brought up in town, her experience of natives was wide, for she had been a sister in the native wards of the city hospital, by choice, for years; she liked nursing natives, and explained her feeling in the words: 'They are just like children, and appreciate what you do for them. So, when she had taken a thorough, diagnosing kind of look at the farm natives, she exclaimed, 'Poor things! and set about turning an old dairy into a dispensary. Her husband was pleased; it would save money in the long run by cutting down illness in the compound.

Willie McCluster, who had also been born and raised in South Africa, was nevertheless unmistakably and determinedly Scottish. His accent might be emphasized for loyalty's sake, but he had kept all the fine qualities of his people unimpaired by a slowing and relaxing climate. He was shrewd, vigorous, earthy, practical and kind. In appearance he was largely built, with a square bony face, a tight mouth, and eyes whose fierce blue glance was tempered by the laughter wrinkles about them. He became a farmer young, having planned the step for years: he was not one of those who drift on to the land because of discontent with an office, or because of failure, or vague yearnings towards 'freedom'. Jane, a cheerful and competent girl who knew what she wanted, trifled with her numerous suitors with one eye on Willie, who wrote her weekly letters from the farming college in the Transvaal. As soon as his four years' training were completed, they married.

They were then twenty-seven, and felt themselves well- equipped for a useful and enjoyable life. Their house was planned for a family. They would have been delighted if a baby had been born the old-fashioned nine months after marriage. As it was, a baby did not come; and when two years had passed Jane took a journey into the city to see a doctor. She was not so much unhappy as indignant to find she needed an operation before she could have children. She did not associate illness with herself, and felt as if the whole thing were out of character. But she submitted to the operation, and to waiting a further two years before starting a family, with her usual practical good sense. But it subdued her a little. The uncertainty preyed on her, in spite of herself; and it was because of her rather wistful, disappointed frame of mind at this time that her work in the clinic became so important to her. Whereas, in the beginning, she had dispensed medicines and good advice as a routine, every morning for a couple of hours after breakfast, she now threw herself into it, working hard, keeping herself at full stretch, trying to attack causes rather than symptoms.

The compound was the usual farm compound of insanitary mud and grass huts; the diseases she had to deal with were caused by poverty and bad feeding.

Having lived in the country all her life, she did not make the mistake of expecting too much; she had that shrewd, ironical patience that achieves more with backward people than any amount of angry idealism.

First she chose an acre of good soil for vegetables, and saw to the planting and cultivating herself. One cannot overthrow the customs of centuries in a season, and she was patient with the natives who would not at first touch food they were not used to. She persuaded and lectured. She gave the women of the compound lessons in cleanliness and baby care. She drew up diet sheets and ordered sacks of citrus from the big estates; in fact, it was not long before it was Jane who organized the feeding of Willie's two-hundred-strong labour force, and he was glad to have her help. Neighbours laughed at them; for it is even now customary to feed natives on maize meal only, with an occasional slaughtered ox for a feasting; but there was no doubt Willie's natives were healthier than most and he got far more work out of them. On cold winter mornings Jane would stand dispensing cans of hot cocoa from a petrol drum with a slow lire burning under it to the natives before they went to the fields; and if a neighbour passed and laughed at her, she set her lips and said good-humouredly: 'It's good sound common sense, that's what it is. Besides — poor things, poor things! Since the McClusters were respected in the district, they were humoured in what seemed a ridiculous eccentricity.