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Twenty-two
(Extract from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler)
I am inclined to abandon my Reminiscences. Instead, I shall write a short article entitled
“Secretaries I have had.” As regards secretaries, I seem to have fallen under a blight. At
one minute I have no secretaries, at another I have too many. At the present minute I am
journeying to Rhodesia with a pack of women. Race goes off with the two best-looking, of
course, and leaves me with the dud. That is what always happens to me—and, after all,
this is my private car, not Race’s.
Also Anne Beddingfeld is accompanying me to Rhodesia on the pretext of being my
temporary secretary. But all this afternoon she has been out on the observation platform
with Race exclaiming at the beauty of the Hex River Pass. It is true that I told her her
principal duty would be to hold my hand. But she isn’t even doing that. Perhaps she is
afraid of Miss Pettigrew. I don’t blame her if so. There is nothing attractive about Miss
Pettigrew—she is a repellent female with large feet, more like a man than a woman.
There is something very mysterious about Anne Beddingfeld. She jumped onboard the
train at the last minute, puffing like a steam engine, for all the world as though she’s
been running a race—and yet Pagett told me that he’d seen her off to Durban last night!
Either Pagett has been drinking again, or else the girl must have an astral body.
And she never explains. Nobody ever explains. Yes, “Secretaries I have had.” No. 1, a
murderer fleeing from justice. No. 2, a secret drinker who carries on disreputable
intrigues in Italy. No. 3, a beautiful girl who possesses the useful faculty of being in two
places at once. No. 4, Miss Pettigrew, who, I have no doubt, is really a particularly
dangerous crook in disguise! Probably one of Pagett’s Italian friends that he has palmed
off on me. I shouldn’t wonder if the world found some day that it had been grossly
deceived by Pagett. On the whole, I think Rayburn was the best of the bunch. He never
worried me or got in my way. Guy Pagett has had the impertinence to have the stationery
trunk put in here. None of us can move without falling over it.
I went out on the observation platform just now, expecting my appearance to be
greeted with hails of delight. Both the women were listening spellbound to one of Race’s
traveller’s tales. I shall label this car—not “Sir Eustace Pedler and Party,” but
“Colonel Race and Harem.”
Then Mrs. Blair must needs begin taking silly photographs. Every time we went round
a particularly appalling curve, as we climbed higher and higher, she snapped at the
engine.
“You see the point,” she cried delightedly. “It must be some curve if you can
photograph the front part of the train from the back, and with the mountain background
it will look awfully dangerous.”
I pointed out to her that no one could possibly tell it had been taken from the back of
the train. She looked at me pityingly.
“I shall write underneath it. ‘Taken from the train. Engine going round a curve.’ ”
“You could write that under any snapshot of a train,” I said. Women never think of
these simple things.
“I’m glad we’ve come up here in daylight,” cried Anne Beddingfeld. “I shouldn’t have
seen this if I’d gone last night to Durban, should I?”
“No,” said Colonel Race, smiling. “You’d have woken up tomorrow morning to find
yourself in the Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of stones and rocks.”
“I’m glad I changed my mind,” said Anne, sighing contentedly, and looking round.
It was rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains all around, through which we
turned and twisted and laboured ever steadily upwards.
“Is this the best train in the day to Rhodesia?” asked Anne Beddingfeld.
“In the day?” laughed Race. “Why, my dear Miss Anne, there are only three trains a
week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Do you realize that you don’t arrive at the
Falls until Saturday next?”
“How well we shall know each other by that time!” said Mrs. Blair maliciously. “How
long are you going to stay at the Falls, Sir Eustace?”
“That depends,” I said cautiously.
“On what?”
“On how things go at Johannesburg. My original idea was to stay a couple of days at
the Falls—which I’ve never seen, though this is my third visit to Africa—and then go on
to Jo’burg and study the conditions of things on the Rand. At home, you know, I pose as
being an authority on South African politics. But from all I hear, Jo’burg will be a
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