The Covenant Part 38

When Hilary intoned these mighty words, standing tall and gaunt, like someone St. Paul might have ordained in Ephesus, he gave them special meaning, for it seemed to him that he was solemnizing not only his brother's marriage but his own, and when he came to the cry, ' "O Lord save thy servant and thy handmaid!" ' he felt that he was asking blessing upon himself, and some of the congregation suspected this and looked with horrid fascination at Emma, wondering if she could qualify as a handmaiden whose fate concerned G.o.d.

The highlight of the ceremony came with the singing of Psalm Sixty-seven, required by The Book of Common Prayer, for then little Emma, who stood facing the crowded church, let her voice soar as she did at the mission, and other singers stopped to listen: 'O let the nations rejoice and be glad: for thou shalt judge the folk righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.'

The congregants heard the song but not the words.

On the return trip Hilary said, 'It was a dreadful mistake to have come. They saw nothing. They understood nothing.' 'What did you think when you met Vera?'

'It was strange. I'd never seen her, you know. Not really. I moved forward. She moved back. And I thought, "How lucky I was not to have married her."'

'You never had the chance,' Emma said.

'I'm convinced G.o.d took care of that. He had you in mind.'

'I liked Thomas very much,' she said. 'He'll do well in this country. We need wagons.'

'You and I need one, particularly.'

'Why?'

'Because we've got to move north. We're not wanted here any longer.'

So when they reached Golan and satisfied themselves that Saul could maintain the mission with Hottentot and Xhosa deacons until some young clergyman arrived from England, they started packing in earnest. They acquired a small wagon and sixteen oxen, a tent of sorts and some wooden boxes for their goods. With this meager equipment they set forth.

They headed northwest for a destination unknown, one man, one woman traversing barren lands that held no water, moving into canyons where desperadoes might be lurking, and crossing lands often ravaged by wandering bands of Hottentot and Bushmen outlaws. They had no fear, because they carried almost nothing of value that could be taken from them, and if they were to be slain, it would be in G.o.d's service. They were traveling to take His word into a new land, and they would maintain their steady progress for fifty days. Alone, walking slowly beside their oxen, they went into lands that no white man had ever penetrated before.

In later decades much would be made of treks conducted by large groups of Boers armed with guns, and these would indeed be remarkable adventures, but equally so were the unspectacular movements of solitary English missionaries as they probed the wilderness, these lonely harbingers of civilization.

By accident, and surely not by design, the Saltwoods came at last into that bleak northern country which had provided refuge to the slaves Jango and Deborah, who had fled here with their children. The land was now occupied by a few Bushmen, a few Hottentots who led a vagrant life after their last herds had been bartered away, quite a few runaway slaves from various parts of the world, and a scattering of ill-defined ne'er-do-wells and outcasts. In the veins of these fugitives there was Dutch blood aplenty, German, too, from settlers and sailors off s.h.i.+ps, and not a little contributed by English officers on their way home from India and freed during their Cape Town leaves from the confines of British respectability. There was every color, from the purest black to the fairest white, the last being provided by the new missionary, Hilary Saltwood of Oxford.

He had settled on land in the northern part of the Great Karroo, that rolling semi-desert which occupied so much of the country. It was a thirst-land whose treeless expanse frightened most people but enchanted those who found refuge here. The Saltwoods built their meager hartebeest hut close to a meandering stream, which went dry much of the year. When it was finished, they surrounded it with a thicket of protective thorn, exactly as Australopithecus had done five million years earlier.

The site would have seemed quite miserable, except for the cl.u.s.ter of five hills, each separated from all the others, perfectly round at the base, handsomely leveled off at the top. Their beauty lay in their symmetry, their cla.s.sic purity of form; from a distance they resembled five judges huddling for an opinion, but from within their circlessay at the entrance to the missionaries' hutthey became protective sentinels guarding the Karroo from the vast herds of animals that wandered by and from the t.i.tanic storms that swept across it. When a man elected to serve G.o.d at this forsaken spot, he had the presence of G.o.d with him at all times.

One traveler, standing at the door to Saltwood's hut, avowed that he could 'see north to portals of heaven and west to the gates of h.e.l.l without spotting a human being.' He was, of course, wrong. In various nooks and secret places families had their huts. Behind the flat-topped hills there were whole villages whose residents hunted small animals for their hides, great ones for their ivory tusks. Others traded to the north, crossing the Karroo to where substantial numbers of people congregated. And others, with remarkable diligence, actually farmed the areaone hundred and fifty acres to feed one sheepand found it profitable. One man mended wagons for customers as far distant as a hundred miles.

But everyone in the Karroo shared in one miracle, and joyously. When spring rains came to this arid land, usually in early November, the rolling plains exploded with flowers, millions of them in a sweeping carpet of many hues. It seemed as if nature had hidden here her leftover colors, waiting for the proper moment to splash them upon the world. In one of his sermons Hilary Saltwood said, 'The stars in heaven, the flowers on the Karroo, they're G.o.d's reminder that He stays with us.'

His duties were many. It was he who marked with ritual the pa.s.sages of life: to christen, to marry, to bury. He served as arbitrator in family brawling. He taught school. His wife was general nurse to the scattered community. Messages were left at his rectory, the hut by the water pan, and he counseled with all who sought advice on anything. He helped at brandings, attended slaughterings in the hope that he might come home with a leg of something. And he partic.i.p.ated in extended hunts when food was needed. He was a vicar of the veld.

But most of all he conducted services, in the open, beside the stream, with the five hills looking down. He read from the New Testament, lingering on its revolutionary messages of social justice, equality and brotherhood. In simple terms, devoid of cant, he talked with his people about new fas.h.i.+ons of living in which all men would share responsibility, and he bore constant testimony to the fact that black and white could live together in harmony: 'That the white man is temporarily in a position of command because of his gun, his horse and his wagon is as nothing in the eyes of the Lord, or in the pa.s.sage of history. How brief is the life of man. A hundred years from now it may be the black man who will be in a position of authority, and how little that too will matter in the eyes of the Lord. White man up, black man up, the perpetual problems remain. Where do I get my food to eat? How do I pay my taxes? Am I safe at night when I go to sleep? Can my children learn the lessons they need? It is answers to those questions that we seek, and it matters not who is powerful and who weak, because in the great rolling away of history, all things change but the fundamentals.'

Whenever he spoke like this on Sunday morning, he spent Sunday afternoon wondering about the education of his own children. He and Emma now had three dark-skinned rascals, with their father's height and their mother's flas.h.i.+ng white teeth. They were bright children, masters of the alphabet at five and their numbers at six. With others in the area, they studied with Emma and took their catechism from Hilary; some of these children were instrumental in bringing their parents to the mission, encouraging them to go through the motions of wors.h.i.+p, and all partic.i.p.ated when Reverend Saltwood organized a picnic with games and songs and food.

Then the young ones, twenty or thirty of them, of every shade, would venture outside the five hills and play on land that reached forever. A dozen kinds of antelope would watch from a distance, and sometimes lions would move close to listen and then to roar with chilling thunder.

Adults always sought permission to join these safaris, and sometimes it seemed as if they enjoyed the outings more than their children, especially when great flocks of ostrich loped past or when boys found a settlement of meerkats. Then there was joy indeed as everyone gathered to watch the furry little animals scamper to their burrows, stand upright to see who was watching, and duck swiftly below ground. 'Meerkats are like people,' Emma told the children, 'they must run around, but they're happiest when they go back into their homes.'

Hilary could find in the Bible no precedent for a picnic, and he sometimes wondered if he was sponsoring a pagan ritual. There was no instance in which Jesus had partic.i.p.ated in such a gathering, but the missionary felt sure that the Master would have approved this glowing combination of fellows.h.i.+p in watching the meerkats and reverence in singing the hymns that followed. And one night he asked Emma, 'Isn't it possible that the miracle of the loaves and fishes should be considered a picnic? Or when He asked that the children be allowed to come to Him. Maybe the Cana wedding guests a.s.sembled on the side of some hill in Galilee.'

Such days imparted a happiness that Hilary had never known before. His wife was a woman of infinite richness; her children were a joy; the tattered people who comprised his congregation loved his curious manners and forgave his intrusions into their spiritual lives; and the great, barren land, once one became accustomed to it, provided a congenial home. Best of all, there were no Boers and Englishmen contesting for power, no social stigma because this man was white, that woman black.

And then the relative peace was broken by Dr. Simon Keer, thundering back to South Africa to collect incidents to be used in another book. He was in his fifties now, at the apex of his political power and a furious fighter for causes worthy of his support. He had recently a.s.sumed leaders.h.i.+p of the philanthropic movement, as it was now called, and had learned how to excite huge crowds in London and Paris with his fiery oratory and dramatic examples of Boer misconduct. His first book, The Truth About South Africa, The Truth About South Africa, had run its course, and he felt he could best inflame opinion by producing a sequel showing that the horrors of Dutch occupancy at the Cape still persisted, even though Englishmen of higher moral standards held the reins of government. A supporter had given him a generous loan to fund this trip, counting upon Dr. Keer's sensationalism to cover the investment. had run its course, and he felt he could best inflame opinion by producing a sequel showing that the horrors of Dutch occupancy at the Cape still persisted, even though Englishmen of higher moral standards held the reins of government. A supporter had given him a generous loan to fund this trip, counting upon Dr. Keer's sensationalism to cover the investment.

In short, the volcanic little man had found in the philanthropic movement his golden Ophir, and he was coming back to South Africa to increase his treasure.

Wherever he went he caused turmoil, lecturing the locals about morality, threatening them with the laws his friends in Parliament were about to pa.s.s, and accusing the Boer farmers of crimes that would have been rejected even by the Black Circuit of 1812. Always he made the confrontation one between the honest Englishmen of the empire and the dishonest Boers of the backveld, and when one man who had seen the real horrors of slavery in the English islands of the Caribbean said in public meeting, 'Don't come preaching to us. Clean up your own islands,' he silenced the man with the thundering response: 'Your observation is irrelevant.'

When rumors circulated that two Boers had tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate him at Swellendam, his audiences increased in size, as did his fury; he was certainly not without courage, for he took his message to all parts of the colony, and in due course he convoked at Grahamstown a meeting of all LMS personnel, and when messengers had ridden to the outposts, a strange, ungainly group of men and women began to straggle in. They were the forward agents of G.o.d, an impa.s.sioned, dedicated, unlikely lot made old before their time by the bleak conditions under which they lived, but intensified in their beliefs by the problems they had succeeded in solving.

Strangest of all the couples were the Saltwoods of Great Karroo, he walking in long strides, staff in hand, his black wife riding a small horse. They had come three hundred miles, their eyes ablaze at the prospect of meeting the leaders of their calling. When they entered the thriving mercantile center the first sign they saw was thomas carleton, wagon builder. thomas carleton, wagon builder. It was a real building now, with stone walls, tiled roof; in fact, it was two buildings, one the foundry and carpenter's shop, the other a st.u.r.dy house. It was a real building now, with stone walls, tiled roof; in fact, it was two buildings, one the foundry and carpenter's shop, the other a st.u.r.dy house.

'We must halt here,' Hilary said, anxious to try to heal any wounds that might still exist between him and the man who had stolen his bride. 'h.e.l.lo, Thomas!' he called, and when the builder appeared at the door of his forge, Hilary was astonished to see how the years that had handled him so roughly had scarcely touched this bright-faced young man.

'I'm Saltwood,' Hilary said hesitantly.

'Why, so it is! Vera, come here!' And from the house beside the shop came the former Miss Lambton of Salisbury, now a matron with two blond children. No longer the timid spinster studying watercolors, she was now in her mid-thirties, mistress of a house and keeper of accounts for her husband's thriving business.

'Good morning, Hilary,' she said graciously. Then, with a mischievousness she could never have disclosed back in Wilts.h.i.+re, she teased: 'You're the reason I sailed so far.'

'Are these your children?'

'They are.'

'I have three now,' he said quietly.

'We haven't stopped, you know,' Carleton said, putting his arm about his wife.

'Has my brother any little ones?' 'Like all of us. He has one.'

During this colloquy Emma had remained on her horse, quietly to the rear, and now Vera cried warmly, 'Here is your wife!' 'It is. Emma, as you know.'

The wagon builder helped her alight, took her by both hands, and asked, 'Didn't you tell us you're a Madagascan?' 'I did.'

'How in the world did you get down here?'

'I was born here,' she said in the slow, beautiful English she had acquired from her Oxford-educated husband. 'But my parents were . . . How do you say it, Hilary?'

'Kidnapped.'

'They were kidnapped by Portuguese slavers. It was quite common. Still is, I think.'

'Little woman like you, three children!' Carleton shook his head and returned to his work.

In the days prior to Dr. Keer's arrival, the Karroo couple partic.i.p.ated in many friendly meetings like this, for the indignation caused by their marriage had abated. Grahamstown was now a typical rural English settlement with a thriving marketplace to which many Boer wagons came. They were heartily welcomed, not only for their trade but also because of the commandos they provided whenever untamed Kaffirs from across the Fish River attacked.

Hilary overheard one tough English farmer joking with a Boer: 'After we were here eighteen months, and the Kaffirs had attacked us once and you Boers five times, our minister said on Sunday, "See how the heathen restrain themselves in the face of G.o.d! They always prefer to raid the Boers." And a man in the back of the church cried, "It isn't G.o.d, Dominee. It's cattle. We don't have any and the Boers do!" '

Hilary was particularly pleased to renew acquaintance with his brother Richard, whose exuberant wife Julie had undergone a transformation somewhat similar to Vera Lambton's, except that whereas the latter had descended from the role of Salisbury elite, Julie had climbed the ladder from Dorset illiterate to solid gentlewoman, wife of a former major in the Fifty-ninth. She found no difficulty in accepting Emma Saltwood as her sister-in-law, partly because everyone knew that Emma would be returning to the Karroo as soon as the convening ended, and could thus pose no problem with her miscegenation, but partly also because of Christian charity. Julie saw that Emma was a remarkable woman and no doubt a fine mother, and as such she merited acceptance.

The trouble came with Dr. Keer, for when he dismounted, tired and hungry after the long ride from Golan, he gasped when he saw Hilary, and thought: Dear G.o.d, this man's ten years younger than me, and look at him! To reach Keer's hand, Hilary had to stoop, which made him appear even older and more haggard than he was; in missionary work a man on the frontier aged much more rapidly than an official back in London. And when Keer realized that the little black woman trailing behind must be the Kaffir his informants had spoken of, he almost gagged: It's another case of a man's taking his missionary work too personally.

In private discussions with the people of Grahamstown he spoke with some force against the awful error of a missionary's marrying a woman of any tribe with which he worked: 'It's a fatal mistake, really. Look at poor Saltwood. How can he ever return to England? I need an a.s.sistant. Work does pile up. Parliament and all that, you know. But could I ask him to help me? With a wife like that, how could he solicit funds from important families?'

One night, at a small gathering, he asked Richard Saltwood directly, 'My dear boy, how did you ever allow this to happen to your brother?' and Richard replied with amus.e.m.e.nt, 'I think you'd better ask Mrs. Carleton over there. You and she were responsible, you know.'

'Me? Carleton? Never met the man. What's he do?'

'He builds wagons. It's his wife you know.'

'Can't believe it,' Keer said, but when he was led across the room to where Vera stood, she reminded him that they had met in Salisbury when she was still Miss Lambton. 'Of course, of course! When I was giving my lecture on slavery.' He coughed modestly. 'I visit the entire country, you know. Becomes very tiring.' He was rambling on so that he might have time to collect his thoughts, and suddenly he remembered: 'But you were to marry Hilary Saltwood!' He stopped, then added in a pejorative way, 'But I hear you've married the carpenter.'

It fell to Vera Carleton to puncture this little man's balloon, and with the quiet a.s.surance she had gained from doing hard manual work to aid her husband, she said, 'Yes, I did marry the carpenter. Because after your lecture that night I took you aside and asked for your personal opinion, and you confided that Hilary Saltwood was rather a silly a.s.s. Which I confirmed later, so I thank you for your good advice.'

Dr. Keer was nonplused at the direction this conversation was going, but Vera forged ahead, her voice rising: 'So on the s.h.i.+p coming out I decided not to marry Hilary. I sought out Thomas Carleton, the wagon builder, I asked him to sleep with me, and then to marry me. So I am doubly indebted to you, Doctor.'

When Keer retreated several steps, she followed him. 'And I am indebted in a third way. For when I see what a great fool you are, and what a man of n.o.bility Hilary Saltwood is by comparison, I realize that you aren't fit to tie his boots, or my husband's, or, for that matter, mine. Now you scamper back to London before the Boers hang you.'

She was still fuming when she reached home: 'It was awful, Thomas, that little prig. I suppose you'll have to apologize tomorrow, but Hilary really is Christ-like, and Keer's so stupid he wouldn't recognize Jesus if that carpenter walked in here tonight.' Then she laughed. 'Didn't you see the way Keer patronized you? And me? He seems to forget that a carpenter was once important in this world, and may be so again.'

Angered by Keer's open abuse of one of his missionaries, Vera was inspired to move closer to Emma Saltwood, and when the two had tea together, or when they walked with Julie Saltwood, there developed a kind of frontier solidarity which was possible among these pioneer women who had come long distances to a strange land and who had conquered it in limited ways. No one of the three had escaped battlesten-year-old Emma running away from De Kraal, Vera battling the physical and emotional storms south of the Cape, wild Julie riding a horse to Plymouth to escape stupid parents and more stupid brothersand each had won through to the rea.s.suring plateau of strong husband and lively children.

Common experience allowed them to be friends, but this could happen only in their generation. Already forces were at work which would drive them forever apart, and in the second generation companions.h.i.+p like this would be unthinkable. Then a woman of good heritage from a cathedral town would not care to a.s.sociate with a runaway illiterate from Dorset, and neither would dare invite into her home a Kaffir, whether married to a white missionary or not.

The cruel wedge that would separate people was driven deeper by everything that Dr. Keer did or said during his convention. In public meetings he excoriated the Boers, making any future relations.h.i.+p between Boer and missionary impossible. In private he continued to ridicule Salt-wood for having taken a Kaffir wife; on this subject he did make one important observation: 'What Hilary's done, the silly fool, is place a weapon in the hands of our adversaries. Critics accuse us of being n.i.g.g.e.r-lovers kaffir-boeties, the Boers call usand when one of our own people makes such a disastrous marriage, it proves that everything they said against us is true. It sets missionary work back fifty years.' In general, he spoke and acted as if the welfare of the world depended upon his conciliating the better families of England so that they would bring pressure on Parliament to pa.s.s the laws he wanted.

His damage to the Hilary Saltwoods was mortal. As head of the LMS, he dictated that Hilary was to be kept in seclusion on the farthest veld, and at the final reception, when it seemed that he had done as much damage as an intruder could, he delivered his ultimate insult.

He was standing in a reception line, bestowing grace upon the locals, when the wagon builder Carleton and his sharp-tongued wife approached. Since apologies had been made, he was able to nod austerely, as he would to anyone in trade, but then he saw Hilary Saltwood, who had lacked the common sense to leave his Kaffir wife at home. She trailed along behind him, and when she reached Dr. Keer she held out her hand, intending to bid him safe journey home, but he found an excuse to turn away so that he would not have to acknowledge her. She kept her hand extended for just a moment, thenwithout showing any disappointmentdropped it, smiled, and pa.s.sed on.

The wagons that arrived to carry Dr. Keer back to the Cape brought a parcel of mail from London, including a letter from Sir Peter Saltwood, M.P., Old Sarum, advising Richard that their mother was failing. Sir Peter was providing pa.s.sage which would enable Richard to sail immediately, and it was hoped that he would bring his wife, whom the Salisbury Saltwoods were eager to meet.

This was quite impossible, for after a shaky start, the Richard Saltwoods had now developed a good business in trading ivory, and it was imperative that he journey to the eastern frontiers to buy such tusks as he could from the Kaffirs, but it occurred to him and Julie that since the Hilary Saltwoods were in town, they should go. Much argument was advanced, with Emma pleading that she must return to her children, but as Hilary said, 'Those children love to stay in the veld.' So a messenger was posted north with news that the Saltwoods were extending their absence for a year or two.

In their innocence, they supposed it to be what essentially it was, the visit of a son to his aging mother, the presentation of a wife at the ancestral home. Just as Emma had been untouched by Reverend Keer's refusal to take her hand, so she and Hilary would be unmoved by either acceptance or non-acceptance. And it never occurred to them that in places like Cape Town, London and Salisbury they would encounter open hostility. Raised eyebrows, yes. Amused chatter, yes. Even the repugnance which the Boer farmer felt toward an Englishman who had taken a Kaffir wife, they expected some of that, too. But they had lived so amiably together that they felt certain there could be no cruel surprises.

They were wrong. Even while their wagon traveled slowly westward toward the Cape, curious people cl.u.s.tered to see the long-legged missionary who had taken the short Kaffir wife, and there were many giggles. At some houses where transients customarily slept, they were not welcomed, and occasionally they encountered real difficulty in finding quarters. At Swellen-dam they were a surprise; at Stellenbosch, a scandal.

When they were safely across the flats and entering Cape Town, they a.s.sumed that there they would escape the unkind curiosity, but again they were mistaken. Dr. Keer had spoken rather harshly of his stupid outcasts in the Karroo, and many people went out of their way to see them, not as missionaries, but as freaks. They spent a trying time before their s.h.i.+p arrived, but once aboard it, their real troubles began. Four families of some distinction, returning home from India, refused to be seated in the same salon as the blackamoor, so Hilary and his wife had to take their meals apart. They were not welcomed on deck, nor were they included in any of the s.h.i.+p's activities. On Sundays church services were held without the partic.i.p.ation of a clergyman, since none but Hilary was aboard, and he was not invited to preach, for his presence would be offensive to the better families.

The ostracism worried him not at all. As he told his wife, 'We're in an age of change, and it's going to take time.' That it would require two hundred years or more would have stunned him, for he moved about the s.h.i.+p unconcerned with the present, a.s.sured that the future would see a better balance between the races. With anyone who would speak with him, he talked quietly of mission life, explained the various regions of South Africa, and shared his vision of the future: 'In India you'll have every problem we have. How can a few white Englishmen continue to govern huge numbers of people who aren't? In a hundred years situations will be quite different from what they are now. I see the same happening in Java with the Dutch, or in Brazil with the Portuguese. In New Zealand and Australia, I'm told, the problem is somewhat different, because there the white man forms the majority, but he's still got to rule decently or he'll lose out. Like it or not, we must devise systems of government to meet unforeseen conditions, and I for one am convinced it must be done on a basis of Christ's brotherhood.'

He was so persuasive in his quiet way that toward the end of the voyage certain pa.s.sengers approached the captain and said that they would like to recommend Reverend Saltwood as minister for one of the last Sundays, but this was dismissed abruptly: 'Pa.s.sengers wouldn't hear of it.' To which the men replied, 'We're pa.s.sengers, and we think the others would accept.' The appeal was denied.

However, little Emma had been active among the children, telling them outrageous accounts of lions and leopards, of hippos in the river and rhinos cras.h.i.+ng through the forest. Strangely, what interested the children most was her depiction of the Karroo: 'Think of a land as flat as this deck. Here, here and here, what do we have? Little hills, round at the bottom, flat on top, never touching. Scores of them. And from these hills one morning comes a blesbok. You want to see what a blesbok looks like? [Here she took some blacking and transformed a boy's face into the white-and-black glory of the blesbok.] So here comes our blesbok. And then another. And another. You're all blesboks, so get in line. And then another and another, until the world is full of blesboks. Marching in line. As far as you can see, faces like this. That's where I live.'

When Blesbok number one returned to his parents, they wanted to know what in the world had happened to him, and he said, 'I'm a blesbok, on the Great Karroo.' This started inquiries, and several parents discovered that Mrs. Saltwood had been entertaining their children for some time, and when they discussed this with their boys and girls, they found further that she had become something of an idol: 'She can sing, and make games with string, and she tells us about ostriches and meerkats.'

So now certain women joined their husbands in an appeal to the captain, but he was adamant against allowing Saltwood to conduct services, on the very good grounds that whereas a few families may have come to accept the missionary, those that really counted were still set against it; he knew from past experience that to irritate the rabble signified nothing, but to infringe in the slightest upon the prejudices of the ruling families meant that letters would be written to management and black marks cast. He'd have none of that on his s.h.i.+p.

On the second to last Sunday those families who still wanted to hear Reverend Saltwood preach arranged an alfresco wors.h.i.+p on the afterdeck, and to it came most of the children, hoping to hear the missionary's wife tell one of her stories about ostriches, or perhaps even to sing. She did the latter. When her husband called for one of the Church of England hymns, and there was no organ to set the tune, her voice rose in unwavering volume, a beautiful voice that seemed to fill that part of the s.h.i.+p. Then her husband spoke briefly of Christ's mission in Africa. He raised no difficult points, ruffled no sensibilities, and when the service ended with another hymn, many of the families congratulated him on an excellent performance. 'We're so glad you sailed with us,' one man said at the exact moment when the captain, in something of a rage, demanded to know who had authorized the service on the afterdeck.

'It just happened,' a junior officer said.

'Don't let it happen again,' the captain said. Several pa.s.sengers had already protested that such a service was a mockery, since the real service was being held in the salon.

At Salisbury there was confusion. Emily had expected her son Richard to appear; she was not prepared for Hilary, and certainly not for his black wife. Had she wanted them to come, she would have sent for them, but when they arrived she simply could not behave poorly. She was glad to see Hilary again, even though he did look older than she, and she was respectful of his choice of a wife.

In the second week she confided to her friend Mrs. Lambton: 'Thank G.o.d, I behaved myself. That Emma's a treasure.'

'Can you stomach the blackness?'

'I'm happy if my son's happy. You must feel the same way about Vera, married to the wagon builder. Emma tells me your daughter is quite content, with twoor was it three?lovely children.'

'To tell you frankly, Emily, long ago, before you talked with me, I dreamed that about this time Vera would be coming back to Salisbury with Hilarythat he'd be taking up his duties at the cathedral...' Suddenly she burst into uncontrollable tears, and after they were stanched she said bitterly, 'd.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! How dreadfully wrong things happen. How can you stand having that blackamoor in your house?'

Emily wanted to weep, too, not for the black woman in her house, but for her son David, lost G.o.d knows where in Indiana, for Richard with his illiterate stable girl, and most of all for Hilary, that sad, mixed-up man about whose head such ugly rumors flew.

'You know what they're saying in London?' Mrs. Lambton said after her sniffles were brought under control. 'Dr. Keer himself said to a small gathering ... Our Cousin Alice was there and heard him. He says that poor Hilary is an outcast, that he's made a perfect a.s.s of himself, with English and Dutch alike.'

'I suppose it's true,' Emily said. 'But I wonder if it matters. In G.o.d's eyes, I mean. The other day I received a letter from London. Someone who'd been on the s.h.i.+p with Hilary. They said his sermon on the voyage was like Christ Himself walking among men and restating His principles. He said he thought I'd like to know.'

At this Mrs. Lambton dissolved completely, and after a series of racking sobs, mumbled, 'I had so wanted them to marry. Vera could have saved your son, Emily. She'd have made him strong and proper. He'd have been dean over there, mark my words. He'd have been dean.'

'The rest of the letter,' Emily continued, 'said that Hilary had been denied use of the proper chapel aboard s.h.i.+p. The salon, I think they call it. He had to preach in the open. I think Jesus often preached in the open. I don't think even Vera could have gained permission for my son to preach inside. I think he was ordained to' Against her will she broke into fearful sobs: He was so gaunt. He looked so sickly. The house they lived in on the desert, it sounded like a peat-gatherer's hut. He looked so very tired. And his poor wife had to make all the decisions.

With an unexpected thrust of her hand, she took hold of Mrs. Lamb-ton's arm and cried, 'Laura, why do these things happen? I'll never see Richard or David again in this life. You'll never see Vera or the children. We sit here like two old spiders in a web, with the flies far, far away. Karroo! Karroo! Who gives a d.a.m.n about Karroo? Or Indiana, either? Life is here, and we've let it slip away. We have a cathedral, the loveliest in England, but the choristers have fled. I feel such grief for that poor black woman in my garden. Laura, I could die of grief.'

Things improved not at all when Sir Peter came down from Parliament, well aware of what an embarra.s.sment Hilary's visit was causing. Several London newspapers had run cartoons showing an elongated missionary accompanied by his fat dwarfish wife with bare breast and gra.s.s tutu, ent.i.tled 'The Bishop and His Hottentot Venus' or other amusing jests, and the ridicule was beginning to have wide effect. Lady Janice was both mortified and apprehensive, fearing that it would be hurtful to the good work her husband was trying to accomplish, and she came to Salisbury intending to take stern measures and insist that her brother-in-law and his wife leave immediately.

But when Sir Peter saw his younger brother and was reminded of that emotional moment at Old Sarum when he had invited his brothers always to come back to Sentinels, he relaxed, and pleaded with his wife to do the same, so although he could not express any warmth over this reunion, he did extend courtesies. Even Lady Janice was reasonably decent to her black sister-in-law.

In long discussions on the benches under the oak trees, Sir Peter sought guidance from his brother as to how England ought to conduct itself in this new colony: 'You know, Hilary, that I'm rather the leader in the House on these matters. Yes, government's given me free reign to work something out. Close touch with the Colonial Office, and all that. And you create such a different impression from what Simon Keer's been telling me that I wonder if we shouldn't call him down here for some serious consultation.'

'That would be capital,' Hilary said, not the least vengeful over Keer's treatment of him at Grahamstown. So the fiery leader of the Africa philanthropists was sent for, and in the meantime Emma Saltwood was exploring Salisbury. Each morning she helped serve breakfast, then donned a little white cap, took an umbrella, more as a stick for walking than for rain, and crossed over the Roman bridge into the village, where she spoke softly with anyone who wished to ask her about Africa and nodded deferentially to those who did not. She frequented all the shops, marveling at their intricacies, purchasing one small gift after another for her children.

Her reception was uneven. Women of good family who enthusiastically supported Dr. Keer's philanthropic movement loved the blacks in Africa, which they proved by their generous contributions, but were uneasy when a specific black took residence in their village and looked askance when Emma pa.s.sed their way. It was the clerks in the shops and the housewives marketing who came to regard the missionary's wife as one of themselves, greeting her warmly when they met. They began to talk with her about lions and mealies and meerkats and the tanning of hides. But mostly they marveled at her clear voice when she sang at services, and one man who knew music said, 'I cannot believe so much voice can emit from such a small frame.' He asked if she would sing for him in his study, and there, with the a.s.sistance of two pupils, he tested the range and power of her voice. She liked the experiment, took deep breaths, and sang a chain of wonderful notes.

Now cartoons appeared ent.i.tled 'The Hottentot Nightingale,' and she was asked to sing at various affairs and even to travel to Winchester to sing in the cathedral there. Always she maintained her smile, her willingness to work and talk with others. England at this period had an insatiable interest in her colonies and the strange peoples they contained, and many persons like Emma had been imported to serve as nine-day wonders, but only a few reached the provinces. In Wilts.h.i.+re, Emma Saltwood was a sensation.

Therefore, when Dr. Keer arrived in town he could no longer ignore the little Hottentot, as everyone called her. Remembering that she was Sir Peter's sister-in-law, he had to treat her decently, and insofar as he could unbend to an inferior, he did.

Hilary, who could bear no animosity toward anyone, was actually pleased to see the dynamic little agitator, although, as he told Emma, 'He doesn't seem so little now. Success and moving with important people have made him taller.'

'It's a game with him,' Emma said shrewdly. 'The pieces on the board are no longer plain checkers. Now they're knights and parliaments.'

'But don't forget. It was this man who taught me to love Jesus,' Hilary said.

'Don't you forget!' Emma laughed. 'He taught me, too. He was like thunder and lightning.'