He was standing at the library table with the report in his hands, glancing through it quickly to check his own notations, when suddenly the latch on the door clicked. He laid aside the report and turned just as the door swung open.
This close, Storm Courtney was lovelier still. She was three quick light paces into the room before she realized she was not alone, and she paused, startled, poised with the grace of a gazelle on the point of flight.
One hand flew to her mouth, and her fingers were delicately tapered with long nails that gleamed like pink mother of pearl. She touched her lips with the tip of one finger; the lip trembled slightly, wet and smooth and glistening, and her eyes were huge and a dark fearful blue. She looked like a little girl, frightened and alone.
Mark wanted to reassure her, to protect her from her own distress, to say something to comfort her, but he found he could not move or speak.
He need not have worried, her distress lasted only a fleeting beat of time, just long enough for her to realize that the source of her alarm was a tall young man, dashing in the dress uniform he wore, a uniform that set off the slim graceful body, a uniform emblazoned with badges of courage and of responsibility.
Subtly, with barely a shadow of movement, her whole poise changed. The finger on her lip now touched one cheek with an arch gesture, and the trembling lip stilled and parted slightly into a thoughtful pout. The huge eyes, no longer fearful, almost disappeared behind drooping lids, and then examined Mark critically, lifting her chin to look up into his face.
Her stance changed also, one hip thrusting forward an inch, the twin mounds of her breasts lifting and pressing boldly against the gossamer silk of her bodice. The tender taunting line of her lips was enough to make Mark’s breath catch in his throat.
‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice, although low and throaty, bounced the word off Mark’s heart, drawing it out into two syllables that seemed to hang in the air seconds later.
‘Good evening, Miss Courtney,’ he answered her, surprised that his voice came out level and assured. It was the voice that triggered her memory, and the blue eyes flew wide as she stared at him. Slowly her surprise turned to angry outrage. The eyes snapped sparks and two bright scarlet blotches of crimson burned suddenly on the smooth, almost waxy perfection of her cheeks.
‘You?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Here?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he agreed, and her consternation was so comical that he grinned at her, his own misgivings evaporating. Suddenly he felt relaxed and at his ease.
‘What are you doing in this house?’ She drew herself up to her full height, and her manner became frostily dignified. The full effect was spoiled by the fact that she had to look up at him, and that her cheeks still burned with agitation.
‘I am your father’s personal assistant now,’ and he smiled again. ‘However, I am sure you will soon become reconciled to my presence.’
‘We will see about that,’ she snapped. ‘I shall speak to my father.’
‘Oh, I was led to understand that you and the General had already discussed my employment — or rather my unemployment.’
‘I—’ said Storm, and then closed her mouth firmly, the colour spreading from her cheeks down her throat as she remembered with sudden acute discomfort the whole episode. The humiliation was still so intense that she felt herself wilting like a rose on a summer’s day, and a small choke of self-pity constricted the back of her throat. It was enough that it had happened, that instead of her father’s unquestioning support — something she had been accustomed to since her first childhood memories — he had told her angrily that she had acted like a spoiled child, that she had shamed him by misusing his power and influence, and that the shame had been made more intense by the way she had used it without his knowledge, by sneaking behind his back, as he put it.
She had been frightened, as she always was by his anger, but not seriously disturbed. It was almost ten years since he had last lifted a hand to her.
‘A true lady shows consideration to all around her, no matter what their colour or creed or station.’
She had heard it often before, and now her fear was turning to irritation.
‘Oh, la-di-da, Pater! I’m not a child any more!’ she flounced. ‘He was insolent, and anyone who is insolent to me will damned well pay for it.’
‘You have made two statements there,’ the General noted with deceptive calm, ‘and both of them need correction. If you are insolent, then you will get back insolence — and you are a child still.’ He rose from his chair behind the desk, and he was huge, like a forest oak, like a mountain. ‘One other little thing, ladies do not swear, and you are going to be a lady when you grow up. Even if I have to beal. it into you.’
As he took her wrist, she suddenly realized with a sense of incredulous dismay what was about to happen. It had not happened since she was fourteen years of age, and she had believed it would never happen again.
She tried to pull away, but his strength was enormous, and as he lifted her easily under one arm and carried her to the leather couch, she let out her first squeal of fear and outrage. It changed swiftly to real anguished howls as he positioned her carefully across his lap and swept her skirts up over her head. Her pantaloons were of blue crêpe de Chine with little pink roses decorating the target area, and his palm, horny and hard, snapped over the tight double bulge of her buttocks with a sharp rubbery crack. He kept it up until the howling and kicking subsided into heartracking sobs, and then he lowered her skirts and told her quietly, ‘If I knew where to find him, I’d send you to apologize to that young man.’
Storm remembered that threat, and felt a moment of panic. She knew her father was still quite capable of making her apologize even now, and she nearly turned and rushed out of the library. It required a supreme effort once more to draw herself up and lift her chin defiantly.
‘You are right,’ she said coldly. ‘The hiring and firing of my father’s servants is not a subject with which I should concern myself. Now, if you would kindly stand aside—’
‘Of course, forgive me.’ Still smiling, Mark bowed extravagantly and made way for her to pass.
She tossed her head and swished her skirts as she passed him and, in her agitation, went to the wrong shelves. It was some little time before she realized that she was studying intently a row of bound copies of ten-year-old parliamentary white papers, but she would not admit her mistake and humiliate herself further.
Furiously she pondered her next sally, picking and discarding half a dozen disparaging remarks before settling on, ‘I would be obliged if in future you would address me only when it is absolutely necessary, and right at this moment I should like to be alone.’ She spoke without interrupting her perusal of the white papers.
There was no reply, and she turned haughtily. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Then she paused.
She was alone, he had gone silently and she had not even heard the click of the latch.
He had not waited to be dismissed, and Storm felt quite dizzy with anger. Now a whole parade of brilliant and biting insults came readily to her lips, and frustration spiced her anger.
She had to do something to vent it, and she looked around for something to break – and then remembered, just in time, that it was Sean Courtney’s library, and everything in it was treasured. So instead, she racked her brain for its foulest oath.
‘Bloody Hell!’ She stamped her foot, and it was entirely inadequate. Suddenly she remembered her father’s favourite.
‘The bastard,’ she added, rolling it thunderously around her tongue as Sean did, and immediately she felt better. She said it again and her anger subsided, leaving an extraordinary new sensation.
There was a disturbing heat in that mysterious area between navel and knees. Flustered and alarmed, she hurried out into the garden. The short glowing tropical dusk gave the familiar lawns and trees an unreal stage-like appearance, and she found herself almost running over the spongy turf, as though to escape from her own sensati
ons.
She stopped beside the lake, and her breathing was quick and shallow, not entirely from her exertions. She leaned on the railing of the bridge and in the rosy light of sunset her reflection was perfectly mirrored in the still pearly waters.
Now that the disturbing new sensation had passed, she found herself regretting that she had fled from it. Something like that was what she had hoped for when –
She found herself thinking again of that awkward and embarrassing episode in Monte Carlo; goaded on by Irene Leuchars, teased and tempted, she had been made to feel inadequate because she lacked the experience of men that Irene boasted of. Chiefly to spite Irene, and to defend herself against her jibes, she had slipped away from the Casino with the young Italian Count and made no protest when he parked the Bugatti among the pine trees on the high-level road above Cap Ferrat.
She had hoped for something wild and beautiful, something to bring the moon crashing out of the sky and to make choirs of angels sing.
It had been quick, painful and messy – and neither she nor the Count had spoken to each other on the winding road down to Nice, except to mutter goodbye on the pavement outside the Negresco Hotel. She had not seen him again.
Why she thought of this now she could not understand, and she thrust the memory aside without effort. It was replaced almost instantly with a picture of a tall young man in a handsome uniform, of a cool mocking smile and calm penetrating gaze. Immediately she was aware of the warmth and glow in her lower belly again, and this time she did not attempt to fly from it, but continued leaning on the bridge, smiling at her darkening image in the water.
‘You look like a smug old pussy cat,’ she whispered, and chuckled softly.
Sean Courtney rode like a Boer, with long stirrups, sitting well back in the saddle with legs thrust out straight in front of him and the reins held loosely in his left hand, the black quirt of hippo-hide dangling from its thong on his wrist so that the point touched the ground. His favourite mount was a big rawboned stallion of almost eighteen hands with a white blaze and an ugly unpredictable nature that only the General could fathom; but even he had to use an occasional light cut with the quirt to remind the beast of his social obligations.
Mark had an English seat, or, as the General put it, rode like a monkey on a broomstick, and he added darkly,’ After only a hundred miles or so perched up like that, your backside will be so hot you could cook your dinner on it. We rode a thousand miles in two weeks when we were chasing General Leroux.’
They rode almost daily together, when even the huge rooms of Emoyeni became confining, and the General started to fret at the caging of his big body; then he would shout for the horses.
There were thousands of acres of open ground still backing the big urban estates, and then beyond that there were hundreds of miles of red dirt roads criss-crossing the sugar-cane fields.
As they rode, the day’s work was continued, with only the occasional interruption for a half mile of hard galloping to charge the blood, and then the General would rein in again and they would amble on over the gently undulating hills, knee to knee. Mark carried a small leather-bound notebook in his inside pocket to make notes of what he must write up on their return, but most of it he carried in his head.
The week before the departure to Cape Town had been filled with the implementation of details and of broad policies, the winding up of the domestic business of the provincial legislative council before beginning on the national business of Parliament, and, deep in this discussion, their daily ride had carried them further than they had ridden together before.
When at last the General reined in, they had reached the crest of a hill, and the view before them spread down to the sea, and away to the far silhouette of the great whale-backed mountain above Durban harbour. Directly below them, a fresh scar had been torn in the earth, like a bold knife stroke through the green carpet of vegetation, into the red fleshy earth.
The steel tracks of the permanent way had reached this far, and as they sat the fidgeting horses, the loco came huffing up to the railhead, pushing the track carrier ahead of it under its heavy load of steel.
Neither of them spoke, as the tracks were dumped with a faint clattering roar, and the tiny antlike figures of the tracklaying gang swarmed over them, man-handling them on to the orderly parallel rows of timber sleepers. The tap of the swinging hammers began then, a quick rhythmic beat as the fishplates were spiked into place.
‘A mile a day,’ said Sean softly, and Mark saw from his expression that he was thinking once again of another railroad far to the north, and all that it betokened. ‘Cecil Rhodes dreamed of a railway from Cairo to Cape Town – and I believed once that it was a grand dream.’ He shook his beard heavily. ‘God knows, perhaps we were both wrong.’
He turned the stallion’s head away and they walked back down the hill in silence except for the jingle of harness and the clip of hooves. They were both thinking of Dirk Courtney, but it was another ten minutes before Sean spoke.
‘Do you know the Bubezi Valley, beyond Chaka’s Gate?’
‘Yes,’ said Mark.
‘Tell me,’ Sean ordered, and then went on, ‘It is fifty years since I was last there. During the war with the old Zulu king Cetewayo, we chased the remains of his impis up there, and hunted them along the river.’
‘I was there only a few months ago. Just before I came to you.’
Sean turned in the saddle, and his black brows came together sharply.
‘What were you doing there?’ he demanded harshly.
For an instant Mark was about to blurt out all his suspicions — of Dirk Courtney, of the fate that had overtaken the old man, of his pilgrimage to find the grave and to fathom the mystery beyond Chaka’s Gate. Something warned him that to do so would be to alienate Sean Courtney completely. He knew enough about him now to realize that although he might accuse and even reject his own son, he would not listen to nor tolerate those accusations from someone outside the family, particularly if those accusations were without substance or proof. Mark put the temptation aside and instead he explained quietly,
‘My grandfather and I went there often when I was a child. I needed to go back – for the silence and the beauty, for the peace.’
‘Yes.’ The General understood immediately. ‘What’s the game like there now?’
‘Thin,’ Mark answered. ‘It’s been shot out, trapped and hunted. It’s thin and very wild.’
‘Buffalo?’
‘Yes, there are some in the swamps. I think they graze out into the bush in the night but I never saw them.’
‘In 1901 old Selous wrote that the Cape buffalo was extinct. That was after the rinderpest plague. My God, Mark, when I was your age there were herds of ten and twenty thousand together, the plains along the Limpopo were black with them,’ and he began to reminisce again. It might have been boring, an old man’s musty memories, but he told it so vividly that Mark was carried along, fascinated by the tales of a land where a man could ride with his wagons for six months without meeting another white man.
it was with a sick little slide of regret, of something irretrievably lost, that he heard the General say, ‘It’s all gone now. The railway line is right through to the copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia. Rhodes Column has taken the land between the Zambesi and the Limpopo. Where I camped and hunted, there are towns and mines, and they are ploughing up the old elephant grounds.’ He shook his head again. ‘We thought it would never end, and now it’s almost gone.’ He was silent and sad again for a while. ‘My grandchildren may never see an elephant or hear the roar of a lion.’
‘My grandfather said that when Africa lost its game, he would go back and live in old London town.’
‘That’s how I feel,’ Sean agreed. ‘It’s strange but perhaps Dirk has done something of great value for Africa and for mankind.’ The name seemed to choke in his throat, as though it was an effort to enunciate it – and Mark was silent, respecting that effort. ‘He has made me think of all this as
never before. One of the things that we are going to do during this session of Parliament, Mark, is to make sure that the sanctuary in the Bubezi Valley is ratified, and we are going to get funds to administer it properly, to make sure that nobody, ever, turns it into a sugar cane or cotton field, or floods it beneath the waters of a dam.’ As he spoke, Mark listened with a soaring sense of destiny and commitment. It was as though he had waited all his life to hear these words.
The General went on, working out what was needed in money and men, deciding where he would lobby for support, which others in the Cabinet could be relied on, the form which the legislation must take, and Mark made a note of each point as it came up, his pencil hurrying to keep pace with the General’s random and eclectic thoughts.
Suddenly, in full intellectual flight, the General broke off and laughed aloud. ‘It’s true, you know, Mark. There is nobody so virtuous as a reformed whore. We were the great robber barons – Rhodes and Robertson, Bailey and Barnato, Duff Charleywood and Sean Courtney. We seized the land and then ripped the gold out of the earth, we hunted where we pleased, and burned the finest timber for our camp fires, every man with a rifle in his hand and shoes on his feet was a king — prepared to fight anybody, Boer, Briton or Zulu, for the right of plunder.’ He shook his head and groped in his pockets before he found his cigars. He laughed no longer, but frowned as he lit the cigar. The big stallion seemed to sense his mood, and he crabbed and bucked awkwardly. Sean rode him easily and quirted him lightly across the flank. ‘Behave yourself!’ he growled, and then when he quieted Sean went on, ‘The day that 1 met my first wife, only thirty-two years ago, I hunted with her father and her brother. We rode down a herd of elephant and between the three of us we shot and killed forty-three of them. We cut out the tusks and left the carcasses lying. That’s over one hundred and sixty tons of flesh.’ Again he shook his head. ‘Only now am I coming to realize the enormity of what we did. There were other things – during the Zulu wars, during the war with Kruger, during Bombata’s rebellion in 1906. Things I don’t even like to remember. And now perhaps it’s too late to make amends. Perhaps also it’s just the way of growing old that a man regrets the passing of the old ways. He initiates change when he is young and then mourns that change when he grows old.’