He hired a horse from the livery stable next door to the hotel and made his way down the track out of the city, riding slowly across the veldt as the scars of the gold mines were left behind, and the Negro shanty town which had grown up around and beyond them. Those mines had been the real cause of the war, and the real prize that Great Britain had sought and secured. He hoped their possession would bring her joy.
He rode slowly, not wishing to tire either the horse or himself, and besides, every hoofbeat was pregnant with memory. When, about fifteen miles west of the railway line, he came across a gully with a spring of clear water and stopped to eat the sandwiches with which the hotel had provided him, he was sure he was on personally hallowed ground.
Then in the early afternoon he approached the kopjes into which he had led the troop that other afternoon, and had to check his horse, waiting for the rifle shot that would mean he had been discovered. There was none, and he walked the animal through the rocks and bushes, and looked down from the low rise into the shallow valley beyond.
When last he stood here he had gazed at a shambles of burned timbers and ruined crops. Now, though the village had not been rebuilt, there were several farms fairly close together. There were men to be seen in the fields on the next rise, and there were some children playing closer at hand, but the only members of the community who showed any interest in him as he walked his horse down the slope were a couple of barking dogs.
He drew rein above three lads who were playing marbles on the track. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Can you direct me to Meneer Reger’s farm?’
‘It’s the far end of the valley,’ said one of the boys, hardly looking up.
‘You won’t find him in,’ said another. ‘You want to go over the rise to the new ground.’
‘Then I’ll do that,’ Murdoch agreed, and surveyed them for a few moments longer. ‘You don’t care for strangers around here,’ he remarked.
‘Not Englanders,’ one of the boys said.
Murdoch realised that they would have been amongst the children, hardly more than babes in arms, who had stared at him when he was brought into the laager as a prisoner; fortunately, none of them appeared to remember him, probably because he was not in uniform. He touched his horse with his heel and walked on, passing the driveways to several farms before, about three miles further on, he came to the one at the end. This was clearly a communal settlement, and equally clearly it was composed of the survivors of that last commando, pooling their resources, continuing to live in each others’ pockets, as they had always lived.
And doing well at it, he estimated. Apart from the cattle pasturage—and the sizeable herd which occupied it—and the pig pens and the chicken runs, over the hill there was an extensive acreage, presumably under corn or wheat. The houses themselves were well built and freshly painted, and most had smart traps standing outside their doors, while black servants tended the neat lawns and black nursemaids walked white babies in their prams beneath huge parasols. The village he had burned had not been as prosperous as this.
The house at the end of the valley was the finest of the lot, with a second storey which, from the number of windows—all with jalousies thrown wide—he surmised might contain several bedrooms. The ground floor was surrounded by a wide verandah, and as he approached a huge ridgebacked hound rose up and gave a low growl.
‘He ain’t going hurt you, lessen you rile him up,’ said a young black man, emerging from round the side of the house carrying a bucket. ‘You looking for Captain Reger? He’s out over the ridge, where they’s clearing that new acreage.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ Murdoch eyed the hound and slowly dismounted. Having been shot by the Boers and crushed by his own horse, he was in no mood to be mangled by this creature. ‘Would Mevrouw Reger be in?’
‘She would be,’ the man agreed, standing by the steps.
‘Well, perhaps you would tell her I’m here.’
‘She’ll be resting now,’ the man said.
‘Tell her...’ Murdoch checked himself, because even as he spoke he knew she was there. He looked above the verandah at the upstairs windows, where the blinds were drawn to keep out the afternoon sun. But one blind had opened, just a little. ‘Ask her if I may have a word,’ he said.
The servant had caught the movement of his eyes and guessed what had caused it. He went up the steps, gave the dog a pat and opened the front door. A few moments later he was back. ‘She says to come in,’ he invited.
Murdoch climbed the short flight of steps, and the hound growled again.
‘He does not like Englanders,’ the black man said.
‘He probably fought against them during the war,’ Murdoch agreed, stepping carefully past the dog and into the cool interior of the house, blinking in the sudden gloom. He made out the staircase, which lay across the polished wooden floor, beyond the very comfortably furnished living area containing a grand piano and innumerable silver-framed photographs. And at the head of the stairs, looking down on him, was Margriet.
She wore a dressing gown, and had changed, slightly; he thought she might have put on a little weight. But the face, the body, the hair, and above all, the scent, were the same.
‘Thank you, Dick,’ she said to the servant, who gave a half-bow and withdrew to the verandah, closing the door behind him. ‘I recognised your voice,’ she said. ‘You must be mad, coming here.’.
She did not move, so he advanced to the foot of the stairs, still looking up. ‘I had to know. At least that you were alive.’
‘Reger will kill you if he finds you here. You must leave.’
‘Is he that jealous?’
‘Jealous?’ She inhaled, and bit her lip. ‘I had to survive.’
She hesitated, but as he said nothing, went on. ‘I had to say that you forced me, at gun point. Both to leave here, and to...to submit to you.’
‘And they believed you? The guard...?’
‘I said I followed you into the bushes because I was suspicious of your intentions. Oh, they believed me. Reger could not accept that I might have run off with another man in preference to him.’
Murdoch put his foot on the bottom step. ‘Has it been very hard?’
She looked down at him. ‘It has been as I expected.’
‘You mean he has beaten you?’
‘Of course. It is his way.’
He took another step; she had not yet commanded him to stop. ‘Margriet. I wrote you a letter.’
‘I received your letter.’
‘But you did not reply to it. Do you hate me that much?’
‘I do not hate you at all, Murdoch. I...I had to destroy your letter, pretend I hated you. I had to survive.’
‘But did you believe what I had written?’
‘I believed it. I think I believed it before we ever left the laager. I knew then what had to happen, to us both.’
‘Then why did you come?’
‘Because I loved you. I wanted to save your life.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I am married to Reger.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘Love that?’
He reached the top of the stairs and took her in his arms, quite forgetting that her mother was probably only feet away.
‘Then come with me. Now. We can be on the train tonight, and in Cape Town long before he can catch up with us— and take a boat to England.’
‘And then?’
‘Then...now, we are not at war. I might not be able to marry you for a few years, but it would probably take that long to obtain a divorce anyway. But I would care for you, and love you...and you would be away from Reger.’
‘Do you really believe that could happen?’
‘Do you really believe I came back, this far, just to look at you?’ He kissed her lips. Where was family honour now? He was proposing adultery, the seduction of another man’s wife. Because she was the only woman he could ever love and he could not fight that. For her, he knew, now, he would sacrifice everyth
ing.
She stayed against him for a few moments, then pulled away.
‘Will you do it?’ he asked.
She stared at him, then moved his hands and walked away from him, along the corridor. ‘Come.’
He followed, heart pounding, but frowning too, as he feared what he was going to be shown.
Margriet opened a door. ‘Be quiet,’ she whispered.
He gazed at the sleeping child.
‘He is our son,’ she said, and closed the door.
‘Our son?’
‘He was born in the concentration camp.’
‘But...my God...’ He turned to the door again, but she checked him.
‘He thinks Reger is his father.’
‘But Reger...
‘Come,’ she said again, and opened another door. Again Murdoch hesitated, this time hating what he was about to see.
‘Our daughter,’ she said. ‘Reger’s and mine.’
The hatred grew. Not so much of the baby girl, but of the acts, the constantly recurring acts, which had created her. Yet the love remained there, as well. And only feet away was his son. ‘Bring her with you,’ he said.
‘I cannot.’
‘She is yours.’
‘She is Paul’s as well,’ she pointed out. ‘And they are both mine.’
She gazed at him as she spoke, and he frowned, but knew he could not challenge that; she had borne the boy in the concentration camp, alone and friendless, concerned only with survival. While he had been receiving the Victoria Cross.
‘You said you hated him,’ he reminded her.
‘Paul? Yes, I do, often enough. I can never love him as I loved you. But I cannot rob him of his child, his children, either.’
‘His children?’
‘They are his,’ she insisted. ‘I do not know if he truly believed my story. Certainly there are those who did not, who would have made it very hard for me. So he chose to believe me, to stand between me and my detractors. Without him it would have been impossible for me, I think; I do not think I would be alive today. Then he adopted little Paul as his own, and has treated him as his own. They are his children. I cannot steal them away from him.’
Little Paul, Murdoch thought bitterly. But the boy was her child. ‘Then you wish me to go.’
‘You must,’ she said.
He turned away from her and went to the stairs.
‘At least until I have had an opportunity to think,’ she added.
He turned back to her, heart pounding- all over again.
‘I would like to see you again,’ she said. ‘When I have thought.’
This was madness, he knew. Yet it was a madness he could not withstand. Because she had not, after all, said no.
‘Will you permit me to do that?’ she asked, coming to the stairhead herself
He was aware of the strangest mixture of emotions. If she wanted to see him again, then she must wish to go with him... if only he could now be certain that he still wanted that to happen. A married woman, twice a mother...but one of her children was his.
‘Where are you staying?’ she asked, taking his silence for acquiescence.
‘At the Union.’
‘Can you remain there another three days? I am coming into town the day after tomorrow to see my mother.’
‘My God, your mother! I was told she was here with you.’
‘No, Paul would not permit that for more than a few weeks after Father died. She has an apartment in town, and I visit her once a week. If I told her I could not stay long, I would be able to see you as well.’
‘At the Union Hotel?’ He frowned at her. ‘Will they not recognise you?’
She shrugged. ‘I am not that well known in Johannesburg. I think it can be managed.’
Madness, he thought again. But if she was taking that sort of risk, she must mean to go with him. ‘Will you bring the boy...the children, with you?’
‘If I can.’
He looked into her eyes. It is going to happen, he thought. It is going to happen. ‘I will remain there another three days,’ he promised.
*
He hardly remembered the ride back across the veldt, and it was late evening when he regained the hotel.
‘Thought those rascals had assaulted you, Captain,’ a very worried Reynolds confessed.
‘Those rascals have just about done better out of losing the war than we did by winning it,’ Murdoch told him. ‘So do we go home now, sir?’
Murdoch shook his head. ‘I think I’ll stay on in Jo’burg for a day or two longer. There’s no boat out of Cape Town for another fortnight, in any event. We’ll be back in plenty of time for that. And this climate will be just what the doctor ordered.’
Next day he took the batman exploring, keeping on the go all day, so that the following morning he could reasonably claim to be tired as he was not yet back to his full strength. ‘I’ll just rest today,’ he said. ‘But there’s no need for you to hang about the hotel. Go off and enjoy yourself. Oh, and I tell you what you can do: make reservations on the train leaving tomorrow, for Cape Town. Reserve an entire compartment for our use.’
‘Sir?’
‘I feel like travelling in style,’ Murdoch told him, wondering if it was true that no man could lie to his valet.
Reynolds gave him an old-fashioned look but obeyed, and Murdoch was left alone in his room, standing at the window to look down on the busy thoroughfare beneath him, feeling more nervous than at any time before going into battle. He was about to commit a crime—if she came. But of course she was going to come, and what a glorious crime. He didn’t know about afterwards. Getting her back to England would present no problem. Having her accepted by Mother...but it would be Mother’s first grandson; she would hardly be able to resist that.
Of course what had happened would leak out. He might be blighting his career. But did that matter, if he would have Margriet, and...Paul. He supposed he would have to accept the name.
Would she be worth his career? He had to believe that, had to be certain of it. For a moment he almost hoped she wouldn’t come, after all. But he leapt to his feet at the sound of the soft knock, and a moment later she was in his arms.
She had indeed prospered, he thought, as he kissed her mouth and felt her against him. Yesterday he had taken her by surprise. Today she was dressed for a visit to the city. She wore silk and satin, and smelt of expensive perfume; her golden hair was gathered in a pompadour beneath a broad-brimmed straw hat, which was slowly slipping from her head and then struck the floor with a plop. With it went the veil which, as a white woman exposed to the tropical sun, she had been able to wear without exciting comment, but which had kept her identity concealed. Perhaps.
She moved her head back to stare at him. ‘I have dreamed of this moment. For four years. I never thought it would ever happen. But...you have left the Army?’
He shook his head. ‘I am on leave. Where are the children?’
‘It was not possible to bring them. Tell me about what has happened to you since 1901.’
He sat beside her on the bed, trying to work out what her plan might be, as she had not been able to bring the children, and told her something of the years since he had been forced to abandon her. ‘Very boring,’ he said, longing to touch her. As she understood. She took his hand and placed it on her breast, and then kissed him again. The children ...’ he said.
‘I said it was not possible,’ she repeated with a touch of brusqueness. ‘Would you like to hear about me?’
‘Yes,’ he said. He didn’t really, but obviously she wanted to tell him.
She got up and began to undress, while he watched her in fascination. She had indeed put on weight, just enough to make her breasts larger, her hips appear a little wider. There were stretch marks on her belly. And on her back? ‘If you would care to look,’ she said, ‘you will see the weals.’
She stood before him, and then turned around. He found himself kissing the soft flesh of her buttocks before he could stop him
self; the weals were easier to find by touch than to see, as they had almost faded. ‘Reger did that to you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Father. When I went home, he made me strip and lie on his bed, and he beat me with his sjambok until I bled and he was exhausted. I had borne a child for an Englander, you see.’
‘Reger allowed this?’
‘Reger was there, watching.’
‘My God! And he did not interfere?’
‘I think he enjoyed it. I did not know then he still wished to marry me. But I think he enjoyed thinking I had been raped, as I claimed.’
‘And your father did not believe you?’
‘I don’t know if he believed me or not. He still wanted to punish me for having had the child.’ She turned, rubbing her pubic hair against his face.
‘Do you hate him?’ he asked.
‘He is dead,’ she said simply.
‘But you went to Reger.’
‘Where else was I to go?’ She moved from in front of him, and lay down on the bed. ‘Will you not come to me?’
He undressed himself, knelt beside her on the bed, his mind clouded by a jumble of emotions, of which mounting passion was the greatest. ‘Then I think you must hate me, for having exposed you to so much misery.’
‘I did hate you, Murdoch,’ she said. ‘Even as I believed what you wrote in that letter, I hated you for having given me the child, but even more for being British, for being responsible for what was happening all around me, and to me. You can have no conception of what life was like in that camp. There was not enough food, there was no proper sanitation, there were no adequate medical supplies. And far too few doctors. We just fended for ourselves, and if we were lucky we lived. If not, we died. The children suffered most. How could you people do such a thing?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
She took him in her hands for a few seconds, then slid her fingers up to his shoulders and brought him down on her. ‘I believe that too.’
She was as lovely to hold and to touch and to watch and to experience as his memory of her, as his dreams of her, too. She was tall and strong and soft, all at the same time; to feel her body against his was to reach the extreme of passion.
The Regiment Page 18