The covenant - James A. Michener [270]
In private discussions with the people of Grahamstown he spoke with some force against the awful error of a missionary's marrying a woman of any tribe with which he worked: 'It's a fatal mistake, really. Look at poor Saltwood. How can he ever return to England? I need an assistant. Work does pile up. Parliament and all that, you know. But could I ask him to help me? With a wife like that, how could he solicit funds from important families?'
One night, at a small gathering, he asked Richard Saltwood directly, 'My dear boy, how did you ever allow this to happen to your brother?' and Richard replied with amusement, 'I think you'd better ask Mrs. Carleton over there. You and she were responsible, you know.'
'Me? Carleton? Never met the man. What's he do?'
'He builds wagons. It's his wife you know.'
'Can't believe it,' Keer said, but when he was led across the room to where Vera stood, she reminded him that they had met in Salisbury when she was still Miss Lambton. 'Of course, of course! When I was giving my lecture on slavery.' He coughed modestly. 'I visit the entire country, you know. Becomes very tiring.' He was rambling on so that he might have time to collect his thoughts, and suddenly he remembered: 'But you were to marry Hilary Saltwood!' He stopped, then added in a pejorative way, 'But I hear you've married the carpenter.'
It fell to Vera Carleton to puncture this little man's balloon, and with the quiet assurance she had gained from doing hard manual work to aid her husband, she said, 'Yes, I did marry the carpenter. Because after your lecture that night I took you aside and asked for your personal opinion, and you confided that Hilary Saltwood was rather a silly ass. Which I confirmed later, so I thank you for your good advice.'
Dr. Keer was nonplused at the direction this conversation was going, but Vera forged ahead, her voice rising: 'So on the ship coming out I decided not to marry Hilary. I sought out Thomas Carleton, the wagon builder, I asked him to sleep with me, and then to marry me. So I am doubly indebted to you, Doctor.'
When Keer retreated several steps, she followed him. 'And I am indebted in a third way. For when I see what a great fool you are, and what a man of nobility Hilary Saltwood is by comparison, I realize that you aren't fit to tie his boots, or my husband's, or, for that matter, mine. Now you scamper back to London before the Boers hang you.'
She was still fuming when she reached home: 'It was awful, Thomas, that little prig. I suppose you'll have to apologize tomorrow, but Hilary really is Christ-like, and Keer's so stupid he wouldn't recognize Jesus if that carpenter walked in here tonight.' Then she laughed. 'Didn't you see the way Keer patronized you? And me? He seems to forget that a carpenter was once important in this world, and may be so again.'
Angered by Keer's open abuse of one of his missionaries, Vera was inspired to move closer to Emma Saltwood, and when the two had tea together, or when they walked with Julie Saltwood, there developed a kind of frontier solidarity which was possible among these pioneer women who had come long distances to a strange land and who had conquered it in limited ways. No one of the three had escaped battlesten-year-old Emma running away from De Kraal, Vera battling the physical and emotional storms south of the Cape, wild Julie riding a horse to Plymouth to escape stupid parents and more stupid brothersand each had won through to the reassuring plateau of strong husband and lively children.
Common experience allowed them to be friends, but this could happen only in their generation. Already forces were at work which would drive them forever apart, and in the second generation companionship like this would be unthinkable. Then a woman of good heritage