A Sparrow Falls c-9

by Wilbur Smith

  Sean asked genially. Nothing, said Mark softly. Nothing at all. And his face was shining like that of a religious convert at the moment of revelation.

  Mark Anders had been a stranger to happiness, true happiness, since his childhood. He was like an inriocent discovering strong liquor for the first time, and he was almost entirely unequipped to deal with it, It induced in him a state of euphoria, a giddy elation that transported him to levels of human experience whose existence he had not previously guessed at.

  Sean Courtney had engaged a new secretary to take over Mark's duties from him. He was a prematurely bald, unsmiling little man, who affected a shiny black alpaca jacket, an old-fashioned celluloid butterfly collar, a green eye-shade and cuff -protectors. He was silent, intense and totally efficient, and nobody at Lion Kop dreamed of calling him anything but Mr Smothers.

  Mark was to stay on for a further month to instruct Mr Smothers in his new duties, and at the same time Mark was to set his own affairs in order and make the preparations for his move to Chaka's Gate.

  Mr Smothers inhuman efficiency was such that within a week Mark found himself relieved almost completely of his previous duties, and with time to gloat over his new happiness.

  Only now that it had been given to him did he realize how those tall stone portals of Chaka's Gate had thrown their shadows across his life, how they had become for him the central towers of his existence, and he longed to be there already, in the silence and the beauty and the peace, building something that would last for ever.

  He realized how the recent whirlpool of emotion and action had driven from his mind the duty he had set himself, to find the grave of old Grandfather Anders, and fathom the mystery of his death. It was all now before him, and his life had purpose and direction.

  But, this was only the foundation and base of his happiness, from which he could launch himself into the towering heady heights of his love.

  True enchantment had sprung from that incredible moment in the grassy saucer on the slopes of the Ladyburg escarpment.

  his love, which he had borne secretly, a burden cold and heavy as a stone, had in a single magical instant burst open, flowering like a seed into a growth of such vigour and colour and beauty and excitement, that he could not yet grasp it all.

  He and Storm cherished it so dearly that no other must even guess at its existence. They made elaborate plans and pacts, weaved marvellously involved subterfuges about themselves to protect this wondrous treasure of theirs.

  They neither spoke to each other, nor even looked at the other in the presence of a third party and the restraint taxed each of them so that the moment they were alone together they fell ravenously each upon the other.

  When they were not alone together, they spent most of their time planning and scheming how to be so.

  They wrote each other flaming notes which were passed under the table in the presence of Sean and Ruth and should have scared the fingers that touched them. They developed codes and signs, they found secret places, and they took hideous chances. Danger spiced their already piquant banquet of love and delight, and they were both insatiable.

  At first, they rode to hidden places in the forest along separate and convoluted pathways and galloped the last mile, arriving breathless and laughing, embracing, still in the saddle while the horses stamped and snorted. The first time they were still locked together when they tumbled from the saddles to the forest bed of dead leaves and ferns, and they left their horses loose. It had been a long walk home, especially as they clung to each other like drunkards, laughing and giggling all the way. Luckily their horses had found a field of lucerne before they reached the homestead, and their riderless return had not alerted the grooms. Their secret remained intact, and after that they wasted a few seconds of their precious time together while Mark hobbled the horses.

  Soon it was not enough to have only a stolen hour in the day and they met in Storm's studio. Mark climbed the banyan tree, crawling out along the branch, while Storm held the window open and squealed softly with horror when his foot slipped, or hissed a warning when a servant passed, then clapped her hands and flung her arms around his neck as he came in over the sill.

  The studio was furnished with a single wooden chair, the floor was bare and hard, and the danger of sudden intrusion too great for even them to ignore. However, they were undaunted and inventive, and they found almost immediately that Mark was strong enough and she was light enough and that all things are possible.

  Once Mark became unsteady at the scorching noonday of their loving and backed her into one of her own unfinished masterpieces. Afterwards, she knelt on the wooden chair holding her skirts to her waist and elevated her perfect little round stern while Mark removed the smudges of burnt umber and prussian blue with a rag moistened with turpentine. Storm was shaking so violently with suppressed laughter that Mark's task was much complicated.

  She was also blushing so furiously that even her bottom glowed a divine ethereal pink, and for ever afterwards, the smell of turpentine acted on Mark as a powerful aphrodisiac.

  On another terrifying occasion, there was the heavy tramp, and the unmistakable limping drag in the passageway beyond the studio door, and they were frozen and ashen-faced, unable to breathe as they listened to its approach.

  The peremptory knock on the door almost panicked her and she stared into Mark's face with huge terrified eyes.

  He took control instantly, realizing just how terrible was the danger. Sean Courtney, faced with the sight of somebody actually tupping his ewe lamb, was fully capable of destroying both them and himself.

  The knock came again, impatient, demanding, and Mark whispered quickly as they adjusted their clothing with frantic hands. She responded bravely, though her voice caught and quavered. One moment, Daddy. Mark seized her paint-stained smock and slipped it over her head, grabbed a brush from the pot and put it in her right hand, squeezed her shoulders to brace her, and then pushed her gently towards the door.

  There was just enough space between the wall and a canvas for him to crawl in and crouch, trying to still his breathing, while he listened to Storm shoot the door-bolt and greet her father. Locking the door now, Missy? Sean growled at her, throwing a suspicious glance around the bare studio. Intruding, am I? PNever, Pater, not you! And they were into the room, Storm following meekly, while Sean gave critical judgement of her work. There isn't a tree on Wagon Hill. I'm not taking photographs, Daddy. There should be a tree there. It balances the composition. Don't you see? She had recovered like a champion and Mark loved her to the point of pain.

  Mark was emboldened enough to take a cautious glance around the edge of the canvas, and the first thing he saw was a five-guinea pair of cami-knickers in sheer oyster silk, the wide legs cuffed with ivory cambrai lace, lying crumpled and abandoned on the studio floor where Storm had dropped them earlier.

  He felt a cold sheen of sweat break out afresh across his brow; on the bare floor, the lovely silk was as conspicuous as a battle ensign. He tried to reach that blatantly sinful little pile, but it was beyond his finger-tips.

  Storm was hanging on to her father's arm, probably because her legs were too weak to support her, and she saw what Mark's desperate arm and groping hand protruding from behind the canvas was trying to reach. Her panic flooded back again at high spring tide.

  She gabbled meaningless replies to her father's questions and tried to lead him towards the door, but it was like trying to divert a bull elephant from his set purpose. Inexorably Sean bore down upon the discarded knickers and the canvas where Mark cowered.

  At his next step, the silk wrapped itself around the toe of his boot. The material was so filmy and light that he did not notice it, and he limped on happily, one foot draped in an exotic piece of feminine underwear, while two young people watched in abject terror the knickers, slow circuit of the room.

  At the door, Storm flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, managing to anchor the knickers with the toe of her shoe, and then propell
ing her father into the passage with indecent despatch and slamming the door behind him.

  Weak with terror and laughter, they clung together in the middle of the studio, and Mark was so chastened that, when he regained his voice, he told her sternly, We are not going to take any more chances, do you understand? Yes, master, she agreed demurely, but with a wicked sparkle in her eye. Mark was awakened a few minutes after midnight with a wet pointed tongue probing deeply into his ear and he would have let out a great shout but a strong little hand was pressed firmly across his mouth, Are you mad? he whispered, as he saw her bending over him in the moonlight from the open window, and realized that she had made the journey across the full length of the house, down cavernous passageways and creaking staircases, in pitch darkness and clad only in a gossamer pair of pyjamas. Yes, she laughed at him. I'm mad, completely wonderfully insane, a magnificent noble rage of the mind. He was only half awake or he would not have asked the next question. What are you doing here? I have come to ravish you, she said, as she slipped into the bed beside him. My feet are cold, she announced regally. Warm them for me. For God's sake, don't make so much noise, he pleaded, which was a ridiculous request in the circumstances, for only minutes later they were both raising such a chorus of cries that should have woken the entire household.

  Long afterwards, she murmured in that special purry feline voice of hers that he had come to know so well.

  You really are an amazingly talented man, Mr Anders.

  Where ever did you learn to be so utterly depraved? And then she chuckled sleepily, If you tell me, I shall probably claw your eyes out of your head. You mustn't come here again. Why not? It's so much better in bed. What will your father do if he finds out? He'll murder you, she said comfortably. But what on earth has that got to do with it?

  one of the ancillary benefits which accrued to Storm from this relationship was that she had at last a fine male figure model for her work, something which she had always needed but had never found the courage even to ask her father to give her. She knew exactly what his reaction would be.

  Mark was not gushing with enthusiasm for the idea either, and it took all her wheedling and cooing to have him disrobe in cold blood. She had picked one -of their secret places in the forest for her figure studio, and Mark perched self-consciously on a fallen log.

  Relax, she pleaded. Think beautiful thoughts. I feel such an ass, he protested, wearing only a pair of striped cotton underpants, at which he had drawn the line, despite her entreaties. Anyway, there's nothing under there you could paint on canvas, he pointed out. But that's not the point, you're supposed to be an ancient Greek, and who ever saw an Olympic athleteNo, Mark cut her short. They stay on. That's final. She sighed at the intransigence of men, and applied herself to her paints and canvas. Slowly he did relax, and even began to enjoy the freedom and the feel of the sunlight and cue air on his skin.

  He enjoyed watching her work also, the little frown of total concentration, the half-closed eyes, the porcelain white teeth nibbling thoughtfully at her lower lip, the almost dancing ritual of movement she performed around the canvas, and while he watched her he fantasized a future in which they walked hand in hand through the garden wilderness beyond Chaka's Gate. A future bright with happiness, and radiant with shared labour and achievement, and he began to tell her about it, letting his thoughts find expression in words, that Storm did not hear. Her ears were closed, her whole existence transferred into eyes and hands, seeing only colour and form, sensitive only to mood.

  She saw the awkwardness and rigidity of his body flowLng into a pose of natural grace such as she could never have composed; she saw the rapture dawning on his features, and she nodded and murmured agreement softly, not wanting to spoil it or break the mood; her fingers racing to capture the moment, all her mind and art concentrated on that single task; her own rapture rising to complement and buoy his even higher, seemingly bound close and fast by the silken traces of love and common purpose, but in reality as far from each other as earth is from moon. I'll be studying the ground for the exact place to site the homestead, he told her, and it will take a full year to see it all in every season. Good water in the dry, but safe from flood in the rains. The cool sea breeze in summer and protected from the cold weather in winter. Oh yes, she murmured, that's marvelous. But she was looking at his eyes. If only I can capture that fleck of light that makes them shine so. she thought, and dabbed a touch of blue to the white to mix the shade. Two rooms to start. One to sleep and one to live. Of course a wide veranda looking out across the valley. That's wonderful, she exulted softly, as she touched the eye with the tip of the brush and it came instantly alive, gazing back at her from the canvas with an expression that squeezed her heart. I'll quarry the stone from the cliff, but away from the river so there'll be no scar to spoil it, and we'll cut the thatch from the edge of the swamp, and the roof poles from the forest. The sun had swung to the west and it filtered down through the forest roof with a cool greenish light that touched the smooth hard muscles of his arm and the sculptured marble of his back, and she saw that he was beautiful. We can build on slowly, as we need new rooms. I'll design it that way. When the children come, we can change the living room to a nursery and add a new wing. He could almost smell the aromatic shavings of the watels poles, and the sweet perfume of new cut thatch, and in his mind he saw the bright new roof mellowing and darkening in the weather, feel the cool of the high deep rooms at midday, and hear the crackle of the fiercely burning mien osa thorn in the stone fireplace on the cold and starry nights. We'll be happy, Storm, I promise you that. They were the only words she heard, and she lifted her head and looked at him.

  all, Oh! yes. We'll be happy, she echoed, and they smiled at each other in total misunderstanding.

  When Sean had told Ruth Courtney that Mark was leaving, her dismay had alarmed him. Sean had not realized that he had taken such a place in her affections also.

  Oh, no, Sean, she had protested. It's not as bad as it might have been, he assured her quickly. We'll not lose him altogether, it's just that he'll be on a longer rein, that's all. He'll still be working for me, but now only in my official capacity. And he explained it all to her. She was silent for a long time when he had finished, considering it from every angle before she gave her opinion. He'll be good at that, I think, she nodded at last. But I had rather got used to having him around us. I'll miss him. Sean grunted what could have been agreement, not able to make such a sentimental admission outright. Well, Ruth went on immediately, her whole attitude becoming businesslike, I'll have to get on with it, which meant that Mark Anders was to be fitted out for his move to Chaka's Gate by one of the world's leading experts. She had sent her man on campaign or on safari so often, that she knew exactly what was necessary, the absolute bare necessity for survival and comfort in the African bush. She knew that anything more than that would not be used, bundles of luxuries would come home untouched, or be abandoned along the way. Yet everything she selected was of the finest quality, for she raided Sean's campaign bag blatantly, justifying each theft with the firm utterance, Sean won't be using that again. The sleeping roll needed darning, and she made the repair a little work of art. Then she applied herself to the one luxury the pack would contain, books. This choice she and Mark discussed at length, for weight and space made it essential that each book must be able to withstand numerous rereadings. They had a wide selection from which to make their choice, hundreds of battered old volumes, stained by rain and mud, spilled tea and, in more than one case, by splotches of dried blood, and faded by sunlight and age, all of them having been carried great distances in Sean's old canvas book-bag.

  Macaulay and Gibbon, Kipling and Tennyson, Shakescase and even a small leather-bound Bible were given a place, after being carefully screened by the selection committee, and Mark, whose previous camping equipment had been limited to a blanket, a pot and a spoon, felt as though he had been given a permanent suite at the Dorchester.

  Sean provided the other essentials f
or the expedition.

  The 9. 3 Marmlicher in its leather case and two mules.

  They were big rangy animals, both hard workers and of equitable temper, both salted by having been deliberately exposed to the bite of the tsetse fly and surviving the onslaught of the disease that resulted. They had cost Sean dearly for this immunity, but then the nagana had an almost ninety percent mortality rate. Salted animals were essential. It would have been less trouble and had the same end result to shoot them between the eyes, rather than take unsalted animals into the fly belt beyond Chaka's Gate.

  Each day, Sean set aside an hour or so to discuss with Mark the objects and the priorities of the expedition. They drew up a list, which was added to daily and, as it grew, so did Sean Courtney's enthusiasm. More than once he broke off to shake his head and grumble. You lucky brighter, what I wouldn't give to be your age again, and to be going back into the bush. You could come and visit me, Mark smiled.

  I might just do that, Sean agreed, and then resettled his spectacles on his nose to bring up the next point for discussion.

  The first of Mark's tasks was to compile an estimate of what species of wild animal still existed in the proclaimed area, and how many of each there were. Clearly this was of the utmost importance to any attempt at protection and conservation. All would depend on there being sufficient wild-life surviving to make their efforts worthwhile. It may already be too late in the afternoon, Sean pointed out.

  No. Mark would not even listen to the suggestion. There is game there. Just enough to give us a chance. I'm sure of it Next important was for him to contact the people living in the area of Chaka's Gate, the Zulus grazing cattle along the edge of the tsetse fly belt, the native hunters and gatherers living within the belt, each wandering group, each village, each headman, each chief, and hold discussions with them; gauging the attitude of the Zulu peoples to the stricter administration of the proclaimed area, and warning them that what for many years they and their ancestors had looked upon as commonage and tribal hunting-ground was under new control. Men were no longer free to cut timber and thatch, to gather and hunt at will.