The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 77
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Now confronted once more with that ubiquitous female, Jonathan capitulated with poor grace.
"Well, can I come with you when my baby sister is here to look after Mama?" I tell you what, old fellow, I'll do better than that.
How would you like to go on a big boat across the sea?" This was the kind of talk Jonathan preferred, and his face lit up.
"Can I sail it?" he demanded.
"I'm sure the captain will let you help him," Ralph chuckled.
"And when we get to London, we will stay in a big hotel and we will buy all sorts of presents for your mama." Cathy dropped her knitting into her lap, and stared at him in the lamplight.
"What about me?" Jonathan demanded. "Can we buy all sorts of presents for me too?" "And for your baby sister," Ralph agreed. "Then when we come back we will go to Johannesburg and we will buy a big house, with shining chandeliers and marble floors." "And stables for my pony. "Jonathan clapped his hands. "And a kennel for Chaka." Ralph ruffled his curls. "And you will go to a fine brick school with lots of other little boys." Jonathan's grin wavered slightly, that was perhaps carrying things a little too far, but Ralph stood him on his feet again, slapped his backside lightly and told him, "Now go and kiss your mother goodnight, and ask her to tuck you up in your cot.
Cathy hurried back from the nursery tent, moving with the appealing awkwardness of her pregnancy into the fired light, and she came to where Ralph sat in the canvas folding chair with his boots stretched to the blaze, and the whisky glass in his hand. She stopped behind his chair, put both arms around his neck and, with her lips pressed to his cheek, whispered. "is it true, or are you just teasing me?" "You have been a good brave girl for long enough. I'm going to buy you a home that you didn't dare even dream about." "With chandeliers?" "And a carriage to take you to the opera." "I don't know if I like opera I've never been to one." "We'll find out in London, won't we? "Oh Ralph, I'm so happy I think I could cry. But why now?
What has happened to make it all change?" "Something is going to happen before Christmas that is going to change our lives. We -are going to be rich." "I thought we were already rich?" "I mean really rich, the way Robinson and Rhodes are rich." "Can you tell me what it is?" "No," he said simply. "But you only have a few short weeks to wait, just until Christmas." "Oh, darling," she sighed. "Will you be away that long, I miss you so." "Then let's waste no more precious time talking." He stood up, picked her up in his arms and carried her carefully to the bell tent under the spreading wild fig tree. in the morning Cathy stood with Jonathan beside her, holding his hand to restrain him, and they looked up at Ralph on the foot-plate of the big green locomotive.
"We always seem to be saying goodbye." She had to raise her voice above the hiss of steam from the driving wheels and the roar of the flames in the firebox.
"It's the last time," Ralph promised her.
How handsome and gay he was, it made her heart swell until it threatened to choke her.
"Come back to me as soon as you can."
"I will, just as soon as I can." The engine-driver pulled down the brass throttle-handle and the huff of steam drowned Ralph's next words.
"What? What did you say?" Cathy trotted heavily beside the locomotive as it began to trundle down the steel tracks. "Don't lose the letter," he repeated.
"I won't" she promised, and then the effort of keeping level with the rolling locomotive became too much. She came up short, and waved with the white lace handkerchief until the curve in the southbound tracks carried the train out of sight beyond the heel of a kopje, and the last mournful sob of its steam whistle died on the air. Then she turned back to where Isazi waited with the trap. Jonathan wrested his hand from hers and raced ahead to scramble up onto the seat.
"Can I drive them, Isazi?" he pleaded, and Cathy felt a prick of anger at the fickleness of boyhood one moment tearful and bereft, the next shrieking with the prospect of handling the reins.
As she settled onto the buttoned leather rear seat of the trap, she slipped her hand into the pocket of her apron to check that the sealed envelope that Ralph had left with her was still safe. She drew it out and read the tantalizing instruction he had written upon the face. "Open only when you receive my telegraph." She was about to return it to her pocket, then she bit her lip, fighting the temptation, and at last ran her fingernail under the flap, splitting it open and drew out the folded sheet.
"Upon receiving my telegraph, you must send the following telegraph immediately and urgently. "To Major Zouga Ballantyne.
Headquarters of Rhodesian Horse Regiment at Pitsani Bechuanaland.
YOUR WIFE MRS LOUISE BALLANTYNE GRAVELY ILL RETURN IMMEDIATELY KINGS
LYNN."" Cathy read the instruction twice and suddenly she was deadly afraid.
"Oh my mad darling, what are you going to do?" she whispered, and Jonathan urged the horses into a trot back along the track towards the camp.
The workshops of the Simmer and Jack gold mine stood below the steel headgear on the crest of the ridge. The town of Johannesburg sprawled away in the low Valley, and over the further rounded hills.
The workshop was roofed and walled with corrugated iron, and the concrete floor was stained with black puddles of spilled engine oil.
It was oven-hot under the iron, and beyond the big double sliding doors at the end of the shed the sunlight of early summer was blinding.
"Close the doors," Ralph Ballantyne ordered, and two of the small group went to struggle with the heavy wood and iron structures, grunting and sweating with unaccustomed physical effort. With the doors closed, it was gloomy as a Gothic cathedral, and the white beams of sunlight through chinks in the iron walls were filled with swirling dust motes.
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