The covenant - James A. Michener [260]
'She'll be coming,' Richard said. 'Who's this?' 'Oh, this is my neighbor, Tjaart van Doorn.' 'You live at the mission?' Thirty miles north.'
Richard blinked. Neighbors at thirty miles? But then he heard a shout from the Alice Grace's lighter. It was the captain, with Vera Lambton beside him: 'Richard! Ho, Saltwood! Here comes the bride!'
His cry was so hearty, and the message so warm in this scene of new lives beginning, that everyone in the vicinity stopped work to watch the arrival of Miss Lambton, who looked quite pretty in her rough traveling clothes. Three cheers went up as the lighter was slowly pulled ashore, strong hands grasping the rope and guiding it to the beach.
Ashore, men quickly learned that she was the intended of Reverend Saltwood, and cheers were raised in his behalf. Even Tjaart van Doorn, moved by the spectacle of a wife arriving in such manner, relaxed and clapped the minister on the back: 'Exciting, eh?' And he moved forward to help bring his neighbor's betrothed ashore.
In the boat Vera sat rigid, her eyes down; she did not want to scan the shore lest she see the missionary she had been sent to marry. She did not want him, her heart lay elsewhere, and she doubted she could ever mask that fact; but the fierce rejection she had voiced during the storm had subsided, and now, faced with the prospect of making her way alone in a strange continent, she supposed that she must accept him: God forgive me for what I am about to do.
At the last moment she looked up, and what she saw banished all her fearsand although she endangered herself, she stood up in the boat, waved both hands, and screamed, 'Thomas!'
Thomas Carleton, wagon builder of Saffron Walden, had galloped at breakneck speed across the flats, across the mountains and the long reaches, to intercept the boat, and there he stood, arms outstretched, to greet his love. Disdaining the hands that waited to lead her onto dry land, Vera leaped into the shallow water, lifted her skirts, and ran through the waves, throwing her arms wide to embrace the one man she could ever love. She was twenty-nine, he twenty-five; she was educated in Bible, painting and music, he in wood-handling; but they were joyously committed to living in South Africa the rest of their lives. They were the English settlers of 1820.
Vera's arrival in this dramatic manner dominated the attention of everyone, even Richard Saltwood, who stood aghast as he watched her. Reverend Hilary was left standing alone, off with the oxen and the waiting wagon that would never carry his bride to the mission. Gradually people on the shore became aware of him, and turned to look at the forlorn figure, and as they did so, they broke into laughter. Harsh words were thrown, and ribald ones, and he stood apart, allowing them to fall over him like a cascade of icy water. He sought condolence from no one, nor did he try in any way to dissuade Miss Lambton from her extraordinary behavior. He could not guess what had precipitated it, but he was sure it must have been an emotion of powerful force, and certainly it was God's will that she should go with the other and not with him.
He did not demur when Tjaart came back and said apologetically, 'Since I'm here, I'll cart the couple to their new home ... if it's all right with you.'
'That's what you should do,' and when Richard, having assembled his own gear, said that he, too, must find a carter and be on his way, Hilary nodded. In the end, all the immigrants found transportation of some kind or other and were off to try raising wheat and mealies on land that could scarcely grow weeds; the government had not been entirely honest with these settlers, neither in Cape Town nor in London. They were not supposed to be farmers and merchants in the old sense; they were to form forward hedgehogs of self-defense along the border, keeping the Xhosa away from the established farms farther inland. Vera and Thomas, in their frontier home, were supposed to take the brunt of any Xhosa