“Frances,” he said, looking at her steadily, “I am glad you are here.”
She smiled and took back her hand, avoiding his eye. “Is there somewhere I can wash? I’m afraid the maid and I didn’t understand each other very well.”
“Of course,” he said, turning away from her and calling to the maid in Dutch.
The woman showed her through to the bedroom and filled the washbasin. Frances stood for a few moments after she had gone, with her back to the door, hands pressed flat against it, relieved to be by herself. She struggled not to give in to tears, and with a determined shrug unpicked the pins from her hair. She was buying time. The washstand here was simple but clean, and a cloth had been laid out along with a jug of water.
It was only when she sat, awkwardly perched on the squat stool in front of the dressing table, that she realized the mirror was missing from its frame. She found herself staring at a blank piece of sacking and wood. It was unsettling not being able to see the familiarity of her own face. She hadn’t brought another glass, and so in the growing dark she felt for the lines of skin and bone; her high forehead running into the deep hollows of her eyes, gritted with dust. She traced the sockets, down and round into the long straight of her nose, and the dry, plump fullness of her lips.
Then she unplaited her hair and ran her fingers through the length of it, working out the knots. The dust and sweat had matted it together, and it felt greasy and thick against her fingers, like sheep’s wool. Finally, after washing, and half satisfied that she was a little cleaner than before, she braced herself to go out and face Edwin. If only it were William waiting for her next door. She pressed her hand onto the white wall. It was cold and faintly damp, and the chalked paint left an imprint of white against her palm.
• • •
EDWIN WAS ATTENTIVE over dinner. The maid served them plates of cold mealies with sliced boiled eggs at the small table in the sitting room, and Frances, who hadn’t had a hot meal since she left Cape Town, had to swallow her disappointment.
“Albert Reitz did offer me rooms in the main farm buildings, but I thought you would rather have a house of your own. You could have a garden if you put your mind to it.”
“A garden?” she asked in disbelief. “I’m surprised anything can survive here.”
“There’s a dam behind the cottage. It wouldn’t be difficult to irrigate. You know the Karoo isn’t nearly as lifeless as it looks. The wildlife has adapted to the conditions in extraordinary ways. Even the lizards have films over their eyes, like windows, so they can see in a dust storm.”
She didn’t know what to say to this piece of information, so she went back to eating. After a few minutes, she asked, “So is that what you’ve been doing next door? Dissecting lizards?”
“In my study? Yes. I’ve been collecting specimens. Insects mostly.”
“What for?”
“What for? I don’t know. Because I’m interested, I suppose.”
It seemed rather a drab, ineffectual answer, and they fell into silence again. He refilled her water glass. “Of course there’s still a lot to do. The outside walls have been filled and painted, and we re-thatched parts of the roof, but it’s still a little run down. I expect you’ll want to make curtains. I have ordered catalogs from Port Elizabeth for you to look through. We won’t be able to buy anything from them, but they might be useful for ideas.” He was trying to put her at her ease, talking about the things he thought she cared about, but he was going too fast. She couldn’t imagine spending one night in this house, let alone staying long enough to make curtains. When he asked what fabric she had brought, she had to shake her head. “It seemed ludicrous lugging yards of fabric all the way out here. Can’t we order some in?”
“Of course.” There was an awkward pause. “It’s just that anything imported carries a premium.” He glanced at her. “You did bring a sewing machine?”
“There wasn’t room in my luggage. I thought we’d find a seamstress in Kimberley.”
She felt sorry for him. He wanted to be kind, but it was clear she was disappointing him. Still, it was hardly her fault. What had he expected, bringing her here?
Eventually, when he didn’t speak and the only sound in the room was the hissing of the candle and the scraping of cutlery against their plates, she asked, “And what is this place? Rietfontein?” The name was awkward to pronounce.
“It’s a farm, but I am working two miles away, running a quarantine station to stop smallpox getting to Kimberley. You heard about the outbreak in Cape Town?”
She nodded.
“And you’ve been vaccinated?”
“They insisted when we arrived.”
“Good. They’re calling it the black pox. It’s already killed over a thousand men.”
“But why is Kimberley so important?”
“Diamonds. South Africa relies on the stability of the industry. And Joseph Baier is determined not to let the disease disturb the smooth running of his business.”
Frances froze at the mention of the name. “And is he so very powerful, Mr. Baier?”
Edwin laughed dryly. “There isn’t anyone in South Africa with more influence.”
“How long will he be keeping us in Jacobsdal?” There was an unpleasant irony in them being here on William’s cousin’s bidding.
“Until Cape Town has received a clean bill of health from the medical authorities.” Then, after a moment, he asked, “Frances, you’re disappointed?” She saw the effort it cost him to ask such a direct question.
“I thought you said you had a chance of success in Kimberley?”
“I did, but Baier is paying me to be here. It’s important work.” Another silence. “Actually, it’s rather an extraordinary place,” he said, looking at her. “It takes some getting used to, but you might learn to like it.”
She gave a laugh of disbelief. “You’re suggesting I enjoy the experience?”
He looked at her with a fixed expression. She met his eye, but a moment later looked away, disconcerted by the directness of his gaze. She imagined the long days stretching in front of her with nothing at all to fill them. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be planning on existing like this indefinitely. A slight panic took hold of her. “Is there any prospect of ever living any better than this?”
“Eventually we should be able to move to Cape Town and start a practice there. With your connections, we can—”
“My connections, Edwin,” she interrupted him, “may not help you as much as you would like.”
He was silent. Then putting together his knife and fork, he said, “As for the marriage, you must tell me what you would like to do. There is a small Dutch Reformed Church in Jacobsdal. Perhaps you saw it when you passed through? The service could be tomorrow. That is, if you are happy with the idea?”
“That sounds fine,” she said, frustrated by how little of himself he revealed.
Sarah, the maid, came in to clear away the plates, and he waited for her to leave before saying, “Mevrouw Reitz has a room for you at her farmhouse tonight, if you would rather stay there? Or you can sleep in the bedroom here, and I will sleep in the study. It’s up to you.”
“I think I would rather sleep here,” she said, embarrassed by the implication that she might not be able to trust him.
• • •
AFTER DINNER, EDWIN SAID, “I have bought you something. A wedding present, but I might as well show it to you now.” He walked over to the wall behind the table. A sheet was draped over a large piece of furniture, and he pulled it off, revealing a piano. He watched her as she touched the wood. It was—miraculously—in good condition. She pressed a key and it sounded well.
“I had it shipped from Port Elizabeth.”
She glanced at him and saw an expression of satisfied pleasure on his face. He was enjoying this gift, and she remembered, suddenly, how he had watched her play as a child, and how she had subtly despised him for it. She had the disturbing feeling that in giving her the piano he wa
s fulfilling some boyhood fantasy—that it completed his longed-for picture of her as his wife.
“It must have been very expensive.”
“A small price to pay for our wedding, don’t you think?”
“In the circumstances, it seems, well”—she paused, trying to find the right word—“extravagant.”
“I’d like you to play,” he said with quiet determination. So she pulled out the stool and sat down, and began on a Chopin piano sonata, remembering too late that it was the piece she had played for William. Her body recalled his fingers circling her neck, and she stopped abruptly, putting her hands over her face.
“I know it won’t be easy for you, Frances,” he said, placing a hand tentatively on her shoulder. “I don’t expect it to be.”
“It’s all right,” she said, standing up, and suddenly feeling sorry for him. He had put so much trouble into buying her this present, but it looked mournful in the midst of this squalid room. It made a mockery of his ambition.
Later, as he said good night to her, she remembered. “Edwin? I forgot to say. There was a rodent. In the kitchen.”
He looked at her questioningly.
“Like a ferret. It was there when I came in.”
His mouth twitched into a smile.
She said, “I shut it in your study.”
“Yes, Sarah told me.” His eyes flashed with humor, and she realized she had never seen him amused before. “It’s not just any old rodent,” he said. “She is a meerkat.”
“A meerkat?”
“We call her Nanny. She lives here.”
“In the house? Isn’t that rather unsanitary?”
“She eats insects, which can be useful.”
• • •
FRANCES BENT DOWN to unlace her boots, and lined them up self-consciously by the door. She pulled the blue silk dress from her trunk and shook out the dust which had caught in its seams. There would be no need for this now, except as a reminder of William, and she hung it in the wardrobe. She considered unpacking the rest of her things, but on second thought decided not to. It was too definite a move. She wasn’t married yet. Instead she hung up the white muslin dress she would wear for the wedding. Then she plunged her hand to the bottom of the trunk and felt the sharp wooden edges of her easel. Strapped to the top of it was her sketching portfolio. She took it out and opened it. There was a half quire of sketching paper, another half of watercolor paper, and two dozen pencils. She ran her fingers over them, enjoying the way they turned in their case. Then there was her color box, with fourteen cakes of color. Their names still evoked the old romance which had captured her as a child: Chinese white, Indian yellow, carmine, Prussian blue, rose madder, raw sienna, cadmium yellow. Sitting snugly next to the color box was a water bottle and two single-bladed penknives for whittling. This was what she had brought instead of a sewing machine, and as she closed up the portfolio and slipped it back into her trunk, she felt no regret.
When she had undressed she lay down on the bed. With a leap of pity she saw what a huge commitment it was for him to bring her here. It was a strangely sentimental act for someone so rational. She was completely unsuited to being a colonial wife. She couldn’t cook or clean, sew or garden. She wouldn’t be any help to him at all. As a child, her father had promised her a goldfinch, and she had picked out the prettiest cage, with a silver water bath, and hung a mirror inside so the bird would think it had company. In the same way, with his customary carefulness, Edwin had tried to predict her needs. He had furnished the house in expectation of her arrival, buying this brass bed, so incongruously polished, and shipping in a piano all the way from Port Elizabeth. There was a book on the table about the plants of South Africa, and she was sure it had been placed there for her reading. But his attentiveness didn’t please her; it only made her more conscious of the extent of his control over her.
She heard Edwin settling next door, blowing out his light. Her own candle, made of cheap tallow, guttered and spat, stinking of the fat of the animal that had made it. She blew it out and felt the darkness press in on her. She had never known blackness like this. Certainly not in London, where the streetlight beamed at the end of the street. She blinked, trying to make out shapes, but saw nothing; not even her hand made a gleam in the dark. She reached for the matches to relight her candle but stopped when she realized Edwin would see the light. He would guess something was wrong.
She imagined the darkness outside and the expanse of veldt that stretched out from the farm for so many miles. She felt she was losing substance, as though she were no bigger and had no greater weight than a speck of dust. She was already so far from everything she had been just a few months ago, when her father had been alive and she had been under his protection. What would he think if he could see her now? No doubt he would be ashamed. She was living evidence of his failed ambitions.
Was it too late to call off the wedding? She could leave in the morning and go back to Cape Town. But with what money? And to what purpose? Would Mrs. Nettleton help her find a position? She had no qualifications, and there could be no guarantee of security. Her finger looped through the gold chain at her neck, and she was filled with a sudden, gut-tearing hunger for William that ripped her open from the inside and left her with a simple, brutal desire to touch him. She clenched her teeth and buried her face in the pillow so Edwin wouldn’t hear her sobs.
Twenty
It was done and there was no going back. Frances hung the white muslin dress in the wardrobe, unpinning the creamy ostrich feather—a gift from Edwin. He was in his study working, giving her time to undress, and periodically she would hear the tapping of a metal instrument against the side of a glass jar. She slipped a nightgown over her head then lay down on the bed, turning the gold band on her finger, unused to its weight. Sarah, it turned out, was maid, cook, and scullery girl rolled into one. There would be no Dutch maid, as she had thought there might be, who spoke English, and who would pin her hair in the mornings and help her dress. Edwin must have been disingenuous with her uncle. Surely he would have expected more for her than this.
The Reitzes had invited them to lunch after the ceremony, and Frances had been glad to go, not because she had any particular desire to make friends with their Boer landlords, but because it would give her a few hours when Edwin was occupied with something other than her. William had branded her—lips, shoulders, breasts—she could feel the trail of his fingers across every part of her body. She was waiting for Edwin to notice that she had changed.
They had driven a trap across the veldt straight from the church to the main farm, which sat close to a large dam. White birds fluttered like flags over the water. The farmhouse had been built in the Cape Dutch style, with a handsome gable and a broad stoep. A huge acacia spread its shade over one side of the house.
“The fever tree,” Edwin said, following her gaze. “The farm is famous for it.”
“Why should a tree make it famous?”
“You don’t normally see them on the Karoo. It’s too dry. Someone must have planted it years ago and made sure it had water.”
She had to admit that it was magnificent. The smooth, dusky yellow limbs supported a series of wide, dense platforms of foliage which cast a dappled shade over the earth below. A herd of goats nibbled at the short grasses around its trunk under the sleeping gaze of a native boy. The lower branches of the tree grazed the wall of the house, and, looking up, Frances saw a tiny attic window, its dark panes almost hidden behind a network of thorns.
“It’s a good place to build a nest,” Edwin was saying, pointing to the tiny birds who darted through the greenery to the domed structures which rested like beehives between the branches. “The snakes can’t get at them because of the thorns.”
Mijnheer Reitz showed them around the cluster of outbuildings. He was a tall, serious man with a roughened face and purpling pouches under his eyes. He wore his long, thinning gray hair in a neat parting, slicked down to one side. His jacket and trousers were black, and h
e held on to a black hat in one strong, wizened hand. He stank of sheep and strong tobacco, and a dirty pipe stuck out of his breast pocket. Globules of saliva flew from his mouth into the dust with such frequency that she wondered how he kept producing them.
They were shown around a group of grubby, whitewashed outbuildings with thatched roofs. Frances tried to keep her shoes from slipping into the pools of muck and the flies from crawling into her mouth. The yard reeked of cattle and manure. There was an incubator for young ostrich chicks, a feather bank, a dairy, a smithy, and stables. Cattle knocked against empty feed bins, and ostrich strutted noisily behind dusty, wired enclosures. Children ran in laughing circles around the cook, who heaved huge batches of dough into the bread ovens, and two mongrels chased chickens squawking into the air.
The Reitzes had a large family—six boys: four at home, two at the diamond fields. Hendrik and Hermanus were the eldest boys still on the farm. They were twins; blond, big-boned, and rudely healthy. Then there was Piet, a dark, solemn-looking child who peered down at them from the dairy loft. Edwin told her afterwards that there had been an accident on the farm when he was little, and he had lost three of his fingers. The youngest was still only a baby. It was hard to believe that so much exuberant life had been drawn from such a seemingly barren land. But there they were, thriving, scrubbed clean, with large smiles and strong bodies. Not the dour, squalid farmers with their brood of uneducated children which William had led her to expect.
Mevrouw Reitz was a stout Dutchwoman with braided hair, thick forearms, and a good grasp of English. She took Frances off to her garden and showed her how it had been irrigated with water from the dam. She had planted the peach trees herself, and there were figs, apricots, sugar peas, lettuces, radishes, cabbages, and potatoes. White jasmine flowers gave off a heady, sweet perfume, and bees droned heavily from flower to flower. Mevrouw Reitz bent down occasionally as they walked to wrench weeds from the beds, and Frances saw that her nails were caked with the sandy red soil.
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