‘Damn me,’ he exclaimed happily. ‘Old Isazi has brought them in five days ahead of schedule. That little black devil is a miracle.’ He tipped his hat in apology to Louise. ‘Business calls. Excuse me, please, Mama.’ And he galloped ahead, swinging off his horse as he came level with the lead wagon, and embracing the diminutive figure in cast-off military-style jacket who skipped at the flank of the bullock team brandishing a thirty-foot-long trek whip.
‘What kept you so long, Isazi?’ Ralph demanded. ‘Did you meet a pretty Matabele girl on the road?’
The little Zulu driver tried not to grin, but the network of wrinkles that covered his face contracted and there was a puckish sparkle in his eyes.
‘I can still deal with a Matabele girl and her mother and all her sisters in the time it would take you to inspan a single ox.’
It was not only a declaration of virility, but also an oblique reference to Ralph’s skill as a teamsman. Isazi had taught him all he knew of the open road, but still treated Ralph with the indulgent condescension usually reserved for a small boy.
‘No, little Hawk, I did not want to rob you of too much bonus money by bringing them in more than five days ahead.’
This was a gentle reminder of what Isazi expected in his next pay packet.
Now the little Zulu, with the headring granted him by King Cetewayo before the battle of Ulundi still upon his snowy head, stood back and looked at Ralph with the speculative eye he usually reserved for a bullock.
‘Hau, Henshaw, what finery is this?’ He glanced at Ralph’s suit and English boots, and at the sprig of mimosa blossom in Ralph’s button-hole. ‘Even flowers like a simpering maiden at her first dance. And what is that under your coat, surely the Nkosikazi is the one who carries the babies in your family?’
Ralph glanced down at his own midriff. Isazi was being unfair, there was barely a trace of superfluous flesh there, nothing that a week of hard hunting would not remove, but Ralph sustained the banter that they both enjoyed.
‘It is the privilege of great men to wear fine apparel and eat good food,’ he said.
‘Then fall to, little Hawk with fine feathers.’ Isazi shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Eat your fill. While wiser men do the real work, you play like a boy.’ His tone belied the warmth of his smile, and Ralph clasped his shoulder.
‘There was never a driver like you, Isazi, and there probably never will be again.’
‘Hau, Henshaw, so I have taught you something, even if only to recognize true greatness when you see it,’ Isazi chuckled at last, and put the long lash up into the air with a report like a shot of cannon, and called to his oxen.
‘Come, Fransman, you black devil! Come, Sathan, my darling. Pakamisa, pick it up!’
Ralph mounted and backed his horse off the road and watched his laden wagons trundle by. There was £3,000 of profit in that single convoy for him, and he had 200 wagons, plying back and forth across the vast sub-continent. Ralph shook his head in awe as he remembered the single elderly eighteen-footer that he and Isazi had driven out of Kimberley that first time. He had purchased it on borrowed money, and laden it with trade goods that he did not own.
‘A long road and a hard one,’ he said aloud, as he wheeled his horse and kicked it into a gallop in pursuit of the mule coach and the wedding party.
He fell in again beside Louise, and she started from a reverie as though she had not even noticed his absence.
‘Dreaming,’ he accused her, and she spread the fingers of one graceful hand in admission of guilt, and then lifted it to point.
‘Do look, Ralph. How beautiful it is!’
A bird flitted across the track ahead of the coach. It was a shrike with a shiny black back, and a breast of a stunning crimson that burned in the white sunlight like a precious ruby.
‘How beautiful it all is,’ she exulted as the bird disappeared into the scrub, and Louise turned in the saddle to take in the whole horizon with a sweep of her arm that made the tassels of her white buckskin jacket flutter. ‘Do you know, Ralph, that King’s Lynn is the very first real home I have ever known.’ And only then Ralph realized that they were still on his father’s land. Zouga Ballantyne had used up the entire fortune he had won from the blue ground of Kimberley’s pit to buy the land grants of the drifters and never-contents amongst Doctor Jameson’s troopers who had ridden into Matabeleland in the expeditionary force that had defeated Lobengula. Each of them had been entitled to four thousand acres of his choice, and some of them had sold that right to Zouga Ballantyne for as little as the price of a bottle of whisky.
It would take a rider on a good horse three days to ride around the boundary of King’s Lynn. The home that Zouga had built for Louise stood on one of those distant hills, overlooking the wide plain of acacia trees and sweet grass, its thick golden thatch and burned brick blending with the shading grove of tall trees, as though it had always been there.
‘This beautiful land will be so good to us,’ she whispered, her voice husky and her eyes brimming with an almost religious joy. ‘Vicky will be married today, and her children will grow strong here. Perhaps—’ She broke off and a little cloud passed behind her eyes. She had not yet given up all hope of bearing Zouga’s child. Every night, after his gentle loving, she would lie with her hands clasped over her stomach, and her thighs clenched as if to hold his seed within her and she would pray, while he slept quietly beside her. ‘Perhaps—’ but it would be ill-omened to even mention it and she changed it, ‘perhaps one day Jonathan or one of your sons yet unborn will be the master of King’s Lynn.’ She reached across and laid her hand on his forearm. ‘Ralph, I have his strange premonition that our descendants will live here for ever.’
Ralph smiled fondly at her and covered her hand with his. ‘Well, now, my dear Louise, even Mr Rhodes himself only gives it four thousand years. Will you not settle for that?’
‘Oh you!’ She struck him playfully on the shoulder. ‘Will you never be serious!’ And then she exclaimed, and turned her horse out of the procession.
Under one of the flat-topped acacias beside the track, stood a pair of Matabele boys, neither of them older than ten years. They wore only the little mutsha loincloths, and hung their heads shyly as Louise greeted them in fluent rippling Sindebele. King’s Lynn employed dozens of these mujiba to tend the vast herds of native cattle and the fine breeding bulls that Zouga had brought up from the south. These were but two of them, yet Louise knew them by name, and their faces shone with genuine affection as they returned her greeting.
‘I see you also, Balela.’ The praise name the Matabele servants of King’s Lynn had given her meant ‘the One who brings Clear and Sunny Skies’ and the two children waited expectantly, answering her questions dutifully, until Louise at last reached into the pocket of her skirt and dropped a morsel of candy into each of their cupped pink palms.
They scampered back to their herds, cheeks bulging like those of squirrels, and their eyes huge with delight.
‘You spoil them,’ Ralph chided her, as she rejoined him.
‘They are our people,’ she said simply, and then almost regretful: ‘here is the boundary. I hate to leave our own land.’
And the wedding procession passed the simple roadside peg, and rode onto the land of Khami Mission Station. However, it was almost an hour later that the mules hauled the coach up the steep track, through thick bush, and paused to blow on the level neck of ground high above the whitewashed church and its attendant buildings.
It seemed as though an army was encamped in the valley.
Jordan jumped down from the coach, shrugging off the cotton dust-coat that had protected his beautiful dove-grey suit, and smoothing his dense golden curls as he crossed to his brother.
‘What on earth is going on, Ralph?’ he demanded. ‘I never expected anything like this.’
‘Robyn has invited half the Matabele nation to the wedding and the other half invited themselves.’ Ralph smiled down at his brother. ‘Some of them have trekked a hundr
ed miles to be here, every patient she has ever treated, every convert she ever turned, every man, woman and child who ever came to beg a favour or advice, everyone who ever called her “Nomusa” – they are all here, and they have all brought their families and friends. It’s going to be the greatest jollification since Lobengula held the last Chawala ceremony back in ‘93.’
‘But who is going to feed them all?’ Jordan went immediately to the logistics.
‘Oh, Robyn can afford to blow a few of her royalties, and I sent her a gift of fifty head of slaughter-bullocks. Then they do say that Gandang’s wife, old fat Juba, has brewed a thousand gallons of her famous twala. They will be bloated as pythons and overflowing with good cheer.’ Ralph punched his brother’s arm affectionately. ‘Which reminds me that I have worked up a fair old thirst myself, let’s get on with it.’
The road was lined on both sides with hundreds of singing maidens, all of them decked with beads and flowers; their skin was anointed with fat and clay so that it shone like cast bronze in the sunlight. Their short aprons swirled about their thighs as they stamped and swayed, and their naked bosoms bounced and joggled.
‘By God, Jordan, have you ever seen such a fine display?’ Ralph teased his brother, well aware of his prudish and reserved attitude to all women. ‘That pair over there would keep your ears warm in a blizzard, I warrant!’
Jordan blushed and quickly made his way back to join his master, as the girls crowded about the carriage and the mules were reduced to a walk.
One of the girls recognized Mr Rhodes.
‘Lodzi!’ she called, and her cry was taken up by the others. ‘Lodzi! Lodzi!’
Then they saw Louise. ‘Balela, we see you. Welcome, Balela,’ they sang, clapping and swaying. ‘Welcome, the One who brings Clear and Sunny Skies.’
Then they recognized Zouga, and they cried, ‘Come in peace, the Fist.’ And then to Ralph, ‘We see you, little Hawk, and our eyes are white with joy.’
Zouga lifted his hat and waved it over his head. ‘By God,’ he murmured to Louise, ‘I wish Labouchère and the damned Aborigine Protection Society could be here to see this.’
‘They are happy and secure as they never were under Lobengula’s bloody rule,’ Louise agreed, ‘this land will be kind to us, I feel it deep in my heart.’
From the back of his horse, Ralph could look over the heads of the girls. There were very few men in the crowd, and they hung back at the fringe of the press of black bodies. However, a face caught Ralph’s attention, a single solemn face amongst all the smiles.
‘Bazo!’ Ralph called and waved, and the young induna looked at him steadily, still without smiling.
‘We will talk later,’ Ralph shouted, and then he was past, swept along by the throng down the avenue of tall dark green spathodea trees with their flaming orange blossoms.
When they reached the lawns, the dancing black girls fell back, for, by unspoken accord, these were reserved for the white guests. There were a hundred or so gathered below the wide thatched veranda. Cathy was there, for she had ridden out three days before to help with the preparations. She was slender and cool in a dress of yellow muslin and the straw hat upon her dark head was wide as a wagon-wheel and loaded with artificial flowers of bright-coloured silk that Ralph had ordered from London.
Jonathan let out a shriek when he saw Ralph, but Cathy held his hand firmly to prevent him being trampled in the crowd that surged forward to engulf the bridegroom in a storm of greetings and good cheer. Ralph left his horse, and came through the crowd, and Cathy almost lost her hat in the violence of his embrace. She had to snatch desperately at it, and then she froze and the colour drained from her face.
The door of the mule coach had opened, Jordan jumped down and set the step.
‘Ralph,’ Cathy blurted, clinging to his arm. ‘It’s him! What’s he doing here?’
Mr Rhodes’ bulk had appeared in the doorway of the carriage, and a shocked hush fell upon them all.
‘Oh Ralph, what will Mama say? Couldn’t you have stopped him?’
‘Nobody stops him,’ Ralph murmured, without releasing her. ‘Besides this is going to be better than a cock-fight, any day.’
As he said it, Robyn St John, drawn by the commotion, came out onto the step of the homestead. Her face, still flushed from the heat of the stove, was radiant with a smile of welcome for her latest guests, but the smile shrivelled when she recognized the man in the doorway of the carriage. She stiffened, and the flush receded from her face, leaving it icy pale.
‘Mr Rhodes,’ she said clearly in the silence. ‘I am delighted that you have come to Khami Mission.’
Mr Rhodes’ eyes flickered as though she had slapped him across the face. He had expected anything but that, and he inclined his head with cautious gallantry, but Robyn went on:
‘Because it gives me a heaven-sent opportunity to order you not to set a foot over my threshold.’
Mr Rhodes bowed with relief, he did not like unresolved positions over which he had no control.
‘Let us grant that your jurisdiction reaches that far,’ he agreed. ‘But this side of that threshold, the ground on which I stand belongs to the BSA Company of which I am Chairman—’
‘No, sir,’ Robyn denied hotly, ‘the Company has granted me the usufruct—’
‘A fine legal point.’ Mr Rhodes shook his head gravely. ‘I will ask my Administrator to give us a ruling on that.’ The Administrator was Doctor Leander Starr Jameson. ‘But in the meantime, I should like to raise a glass to the happiness of the young couple.’
‘I assure you, Mr Rhodes, that you will not be served refreshment at Khami.’
Mr Rhodes nodded at Jordan, and he hurried back to the mule coach. In a flurry of activity he supervised the uniformed servants who unpacked the camp chairs and tables and placed them in the shade of the tender growth that the spathodea trees had put out since the locust plague.
As Mr Rhodes and his party settled themselves, Jordan fired the cork from the first bottle of champagne and spilled a frothy deluge into a crystal glass, and Robyn St John disappeared abruptly from the veranda.
Ralph placed Jonathan in Cathy’s arms. ‘She’s up to something,’ he said, and sprinted across the lawns. He vaulted over the low veranda wall and burst into the living-room just as Robyn lifted the shotgun down from its rack above the fireplace.
‘Aunt Robyn, what are you doing?’
‘Changing the cartridges, taking out the birdshot and putting in big loopers!’
‘My darling mother-in-law, you cannot do that,’ Ralph protested, and edged towards her.
‘Not use big loopers?’ Robyn circled him warily, keeping out of reach, holding the shotgun with its ornate curly hammers at the level of her chest.
‘You cannot shoot him.’
‘Why not?’
‘Think of the scandal.’
‘Scandal and I have been travelling companions as long as I can remember.’
‘Then think of the mess,’ Ralph urged her.
‘I’ll do it on the lawn,’ Robyn said, and Ralph knew that she meant it. He sought desperately for inspiration, and found it.
‘Number Six!’ he cried, and Robyn froze and stared at him.
‘Number Six, “Thou shalt not kill”.’
‘God was not speaking of Cecil Rhodes,’ Robyn said, but her eyes wavered.
‘If the Almighty was allowing open season on specified targets, I’m sure He would have put in a footnote.’ Ralph pursued his advantage, and Robyn sighed and turned back to the leather cartridge bag on its hook.
‘Now what are you doing?’ Ralph demanded suspiciously.
‘Changing back to birdshot,’ Robyn muttered. ‘God didn’t say anything about flesh wounds.’ But Ralph seized the stock of the shotgun and with only a token of resistance Robyn relinquished it.
‘Oh, Ralph,’ she whispered. ‘The effrontery of that man. I wish I was allowed to swear.’
‘God will understand,’ Ralph encouraged her.
r /> ‘Damn him to bloody hell!’ she said.
‘Better?’
‘Not much.’
‘Here,’ he said, and slipped the silver flask from his back pocket.
She took a swallow, and blinked at the tears of anger that stung her eyes.
‘Better?’
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘What must I do, Ralph?’
‘Conduct yourself with frosty dignity.’
‘Right.’ She lifted her chin determinedly and marched back onto the veranda.
Under the spathodea trees, Jordan had donned a crisp white apron and tall chef’s cap, and was serving champagne and huge golden Cornish pasties to whoever wanted them. The veranda, which had been crowded with guests before the arrival of the mule coach, was now deserted, and there was a jovial throng around Mr Rhodes.
‘We will start cooking the sausage,’ Robyn told Juba. ‘Get your girls busy.’
‘They aren’t even married yet, Nomusa,’ Juba protested. ‘The wedding is not until five o’clock—’
‘Feed them,’ Robyn ordered. ‘I’ll back my sausage against Jordan Ballantyne’s pasties to bring ‘em back.’
‘And I’ll put my money on Mr Rhodes’ champagne to keep ‘em there,’ Ralph told her. ‘Can you match it?’
‘I haven’t a drop, Ralph,’ Robyn admitted. ‘I have beer and brandy, but not champagne.’
With a single glance, Ralph caught the eye of one of the younger guests on the lawn. He was the manager of Ralph’s General Dealer’s shop in Bulawayo. He read Ralph’s expression, and hurried up the steps to his side, listened intently to his instructions for a few seconds, and then ran to his horse.
‘Where did you send him?’ Robyn demanded.
‘A convoy of my wagons arrived today. They will not have unloaded yet. We’ll have a wagon full of bubbly out here within a few hours.’