The covenant - James A. Michener [402]
He had a right to expect favorable results, for he had sent one of the finest young women of the Salisbury district, member of a strong family, heiress to a modest fortune, and recipient of one of the most practical educations possible: she had been allowed to listen to the lively conversation of her elders, who were interested in politics, morals, business and empire. She was reasonably pretty, unreasonably clever with her tongue, and a person to whom an adventure like Cape Town was irresistibly attractive as something to do before settling down in Salisbury.
She half suspected that Sir Victor and her uncle were conspiring in some way to get her to meet this or that young man; they were always conspiring about bills in Parliament or reforms in the church, but this did not mean that she had to accede to their rough-and-ready stratagems. She would deliver the papers, go on an elephant hunt, and return to England to marry whom she pleased. In performing these duties she would see as much of South Africa as possible, and have a rattling good time doing so.
At the end of the voyage out she could have married any one of three quite ordinary men who had courted her, and she felt confident that on the voyage home she could do better, so she was in no hurry to accept whomever it was that her uncle had selected for her, but when she saw on the dock awaiting her a young man of obvious charm and vitality, she was interested.
'Halloo!' she cried in a very unladylike shout. 'Are you Mr. Rhodes' emissary?'
'I am. Saltwood's the name.'
'Meet me over there, Saltwood,' and without assistance from the pursers she found the gangway and was one of the first off the ship.
Frank, watching her come skipping down the sloping stairs, saw at once what a remarkable young woman she was. 'She seemed all of a piece,' he wrote to his mother. 'From her buttoned shoes to the sway of her skirt, from the broad cloth belt about her waist to the perfection of her blouse, she was a harmony, but what I liked most was the way she coiled her hair. No man could have deciphered just how she did it, all auburn and glowing in the sunlight.'
Still, he might have resisted her allure had it not been for the added seductiveness of the Mount Nelson Hotel. This fine edifice stood at the edge of the gardens laid out by Jan van Riebeeck two hundred and forty years before. It was the glory of Cape Town, a spacious inn with lovely grounds, ornate hallways, excellent kitchens and muted servants who seemed to be either Malay or Coloured. A chilled Trianon wine from the Van Doorn vineyards, a small helping of a spicy bobotie, followed by roast duiker and an orange souffle at the Mount Nelson might addle any young man's good judgment, but when a lively young woman like Maud Turner sat sharing it and throwing her witty barbs, it became a Lucullan feast. He telegraphed Mr. Rhodes:
business complications necessitate three more days.
During these three days he was captivated by the levels of interest and understanding she displayed, and he found that she was honestly 'all of a piece,' as he had written, a beautifully organized person whose individuality matched her intelligence. In curious ways she resembled Mr. Rhodes, for absolutely everything interested her: 'How will the blacks ever learn if there aren't enough schools for them?' She developed a special affinity for the Cape Afrikaners and sought them out. 'How could you, Frank, have lived here so long and known so few of them? They're far more interesting than your English friends . . . What, for heaven's sake, have you been doing all this time?'
'Working with Mr. Rhodes.'
'What I mean, Saltwood. The English in South Africa. Another decade, you'll have been here a century, and what have you achieved? You've driven the Boers to set up their own republics. And the ones left behind here in the Cape are talking about an Afrikaner Bond, or something. What have you English got to show?'
Frank laughed. 'My dear Maud, almost everything you've seen has been the result of English effort. The port you entered. The