The Covenant Part 36

Wishing not to share her secret mission with any servant, she elected not to use her carriage but to walk to the village, where she sought out the bricked path leading to the Lambton residence, at whose door she knocked quietly. After an interval that troubled her, because it seemed that no one was at home, she heard shuffling feet approach, and an elderly maid creaked open the door. 'Mrs. Lambton is not at home,' she said. Nor was Miss Lambton there, but there was a possibility that they could be found near the cathedral grounds, for they had planned on having tea in that vicinity.

Emily said, 'You know, it's frightfully important that I see Mrs. Lambton immediately, and I think you'd better go fetch them.'

'I couldn't leave the house, ma'am.' The maid was insistent.

'On this day you'd better.' Emily Saltwood could be just as insistent.

'Couldn't you go and meet them at the cathedral?'

'No, I couldn't. Because what I have to discuss is not for an open park. Now you scurry off and find your mistress, or I'll take this umbrella to you.'

This the maid understood, and after a while she returned, leading both Mrs. Lambton and her daughter Vera. This was rather more than Emily had expected, so she said quite brusquely, 'It was your mother I wished to see,' and the tall girl, twenty-nine years old and somewhat timid, dutifully vanished.

'I've had a curious letter from my son Hilary, in South Africa,' Emily began, and without another word being spoken, Mrs. Lambton grasped the significance of this abrupt meeting. Keeping her hands under discipline, lest they tremble, she said, 'Vera and I remember Hilary well. The soldier, wasn't he?'

'The missionary,' Emily said.

'Yes, yes.' Her hands were now trembling furiously, but she kept them hidden. She knew she'd made an unforgivable mistake, confusing the Salt-wood boys, but she recovered admirably by throwing Emily on the defensive: 'Didn't you have a son who went to America?'

'Alas, we did. Never hear of him.'

'They tell me that your boy Richard's thinking of returning to India . . . without the regiment.'

'He's headstrong. He'll be off to some remote spot.'

'Tell me, Emily, how does a mother feel when her chicks are so scattered?'

'You may soon know, because Hilary has asked me to ascertain whether Vera . . .' It was most difficult to say such a thing bluntly, without preparation of any kind, but it was inescapable. 'He wonders if Vera would like to join him in South Africain the mission field, that is.'

'She's a devout girl,' Mrs. Lambton parried. 'All us Lambtons are devoted to the church.'

'I know, I know. That's why it's been so easy for me to approach you on so delicate a matter.'

'I don't know how Vera . . .' Mrs. Lambton spoke defensively, as if her daughter were accustomed to weighing such proposals, but Emily Saltwood was not going to have any of that. Abruptly she said, 'Vera's at the age when she must make up her mind ... and quickly. Hilary's a fine lad and he needs a wife.'

'How old is he?' Mrs. Lambton asked sweetly. 'Thirty-four. The proper age for such a marriage.' 'And has he prospects?'

'His older brotherPeter, that ishe'll inherit the house, of course. But we expect Hilary to be dean of the cathedral one of these days. When his tour ends, of course.'

'Most interesting.' Mrs. Lambton knew of three young clergymen who were being considered for that promotion. Besides, Hilary suffered an impediment which completely disqualified him, and it was important to knock down Mrs. Saltwood's bargaining position early in the game: 'Didn't I hear that your son took orders with the Methodists, or something quite awful like that?' She beamed her benign Sunday-in-church smile.

'Merely for his ordination to do Christ's work. He'll scamper back into the proper fold, once he returns.' She, too, smiled. 'You've heard, I'm sure, that before he died, the old Proprietor, who was extremely fond of Hilary, made special overtures for him at the cathedral.'

'Pity he died,' Mrs. Lambton said. She had other solid objections to sending her daughter to a land so remote as South Africa, but she was realist enough to know that Vera was aging and had better catch a suitor promptly. Even a ghost like the absent Hilary had to be considered, so she extended Mrs. Saltwood a courtesy she did not fully feel: 'I think we should discuss this, Emily.'

'Shall we involve Vera?' Mrs. Saltwood asked.

'Not at this point, I think. And certainly not the two of us. It would make everything seem too important.'

'It's just that,' Emily said with that charming frankness that characterized so many elderly English women who no longer felt restraints. 'It's very important for my son, and frankly, it ought to be for Vera too. She's not getting any younger.'

She walked home across the old bridge, turned right, and went down the quiet lane leading to Sentinels, where she felt vaguely uneasy, although unaware that national events were about to do her work for her.

In London her eldest son, Peter, now a member of Parliament for Old Sarum, had become a leader in the movement to alleviate English unemployment by the device of granting large funds for shipping unwanted families out to South Africa: This interesting action will serve two n.o.ble purposes. In England it will remove large numbers of unfortunate people from our charity rolls, and in South Africa it will correct the imbalance that now exists between the many Dutch and the few English. If our new colony below the equator is to become properly English, as it must, we shall have to throw many Englishmen into the balance pans, and this act will do just that.

A gigantic effort was mounted to convince impoverished Englishmen that they must quit their hopelessness at home and venture into the new paradise. Articles were published extolling the agricultural possibilities, the beauty of the landscape, and the salubriousness of the climate on the right bank of the Great Fish River, in the vicinity of that splendid rural capital Grahamstown. No mention was made of the recent attack by ten thousand a.s.segaied Xhosa on said capital or the deaths among those who had defended it.

Most helpful were the speeches and writings of Reverend Simon Keer, who a.s.sured Englishmen that those lucky enough to be included in the roster of immigrantswhose boat fare would be paid by the government and whose land would be given free, a hundred rolling acres to each family would be entering a paradise to which America and Australia were n.i.g.g.ardly in comparison. To residents of crowded England, where a family could live well on twenty acres, the vision of a hundred, rent-free, tax-free, was compelling.

Ninety thousand citizens, well mixed as to occupation, education and ability, volunteered to emigrate, a superior lot, really, to those who had emigrated earlier to Canada and America, and had they all been moved to Cape Town, the history of Africa would have been sharply modified, for at this time there were only some twenty-five thousand Boers in the entire colony, and the infusion of so many Englishmen would have made South Africa much like any other British colony. But enthusiastic members of Parliament, such as Peter Saltwood, promised much more than they could deliver, and when the time came to fill the ships, only enough money to transport four thousand settlers was provided, so that the eighty-six thousand who might have restructured a nation had to be left behind.

Among those lucky enough to be included was a young man of twenty-five named Thomas Carleton, a carriage builder by trade, whose enthusiasm matched the rhetoric of speakers like Peter Saltwood and Simon Keer. From the first moment he heard of the emigration plan, he wanted to go, and with letters of approval from his minister and sheriff, he was among the first interviewed: 'My business is solid, but it's not really thriving. I want to go where distances are great and men must have wagons.'

'Have you any money saved?'

'Not a penny, but I have strong arms, a willing back and a complete set of tools fully paid.'

The examiners doubted if they would find many men so qualified and unanimously recommended that he be accepted, so he was given a slip of paper guaranteeing his pa.s.sage and the allocation of one hundred acres. He was to report three months hence to Southampton, where the ship Alice Grace Alice Grace would be loading. 'That'll give you time to find yourself a wife,' the examiners explained. would be loading. 'That'll give you time to find yourself a wife,' the examiners explained.

'Not me!' Thomas said. 'I haven't a penny to feed a wife.'

When the news of this grand scheme reached Salisbury, the Lambtons listened with more than casual attention, and the more they heard, the more convinced they became that this was the kind of adventure to which an unmarried girl of good breeding might subscribe. Of course, Vera would not be sailing as an ordinary charity case, her way paid by the government; as the intended bride of a clergyman who might one day be dean of the finest cathedral in England, and the sister-in-law-to-be of an important member of Parliament, she would have preferment.

But the grand decision hung in the balance until Salisbury was visited by the one man in England who spoke as if he knew most about the new colony, Dr. Simon Keer, as he now called himself, a power in the LMS. He announced a public meeting in the cathedral cloisters, where chairs lined the hallowed square and where against a background of gray stone he explained everything. He was now middle-aged, a short, plump little man with red hair, a Lancashire accent and a powerful voice that boomed as it echoed from the n.o.ble walls; his oratory rolled like thunder as he spoke of challenges and flashed like lightning when he outlined the potentialities: 'If we grapple courageously with the problem of slavery in this colony, we shall show the way for Canada and Jamaica and Barbados and, yes, the United States itself. Any English man or woman who accepts this invitation to perform G.o.d's duty will be serving all of mankind. I wish I could sail in those ships, for all who do will be rebuilding the world.'

When the Lambtons lingered to ask him if he knew anything of Grahamstown, where the new settlers would be given their land, he showed his frank astonishment that a family as distinguished as theirs might be interested in emigrating: 'It's for the poorer type, you know. The solid workers of the world.'

'Of course,' Mrs. Lambton said. 'But we're told that the Golan Mission, run by your Society . . .' She had to say no more. With a wild clap of his hands and a leap in the air he cried, 'I know! I know!' And he took Vera's hands and danced a jig with her, even though she was a head taller than he. 'You're going out to marry Hilary Saltwood.'

He spent an hour a.s.suring the Lambtons of how fine a man this missionary was. He reviewed the steps by which Hilary had reached conversion, and said that whereas he himself had not yet visited Golan Mission, for it had not been in existence when he served in that area, he had excellent reports of it. But then Vera took him aside for a confidential a.s.sessment.

When he finished she was convinced that she could profitably sail to South Africa, but her mother raised one serious objection: 'With whom can Vera travel? I don't fancy her alone on a ship for four months, surrounded by G.o.d knows whom.'

'That's a real problem,' Dr. Keer conceded, 'but I've been working closely with the shipping companies. Real gentlemen, you know.' To hear the former missionary speak, he consorted only with the best families, stayed only at the great houses, and one gained the impression that he enjoyed missionary work far more when lecturing in England than he had when serving on the Xhosa frontier. 'I'm sure we'll find persons of quality among the ship's officers. I'll make inquiries.'

This wasn't necessary, for within a week of Dr. Keer's lecture in the cloisters, Richard Saltwood came down from London, where he had been consulting with his brother in Parliament, and his news was exciting: 'Mother! I've resigned my commission. Wasn't going anywhere down that lane. And Peter's arranged with the colonial secretary for me . . . Point is, I'm to have a government job at Grahamstown! David lost in America. Me lost in South Africa.'

'Are you contemplating staying there?' his mother asked.

'There's nothing for me here. I've neither the money nor the talent to be a colonel of the regiment. So I'm off to the new land. I saw it and liked it. Much better than India.'

'This could be providential,' his mother said. 'We've found a bride for Hilary. The Lambton girl. You knew her years ago. She's a tall, thin thing now and is desperately hungry for a husband, although she won't admit it.'

'She's sailing to Cape Town? Splendid for Hilary.'

'She's ready to sail,' Emily said hesitantly, 'but she's afraid of going out with the emigrant mobunattended, as it were.'

'I'll take her!' Richard said with the spontaneity that had gained him the affection of any troops with whom he served in close quarters.

'That's what I had in mind, the moment you spoke. But there are grave dangers . . .'

'Our laddies have the savages whipped into shape. A skirmish now and then, nothing to fear.'

'It wasn't that I was thinking of. Richard, will you go fetch Vera? Right now?'

They sat under the oak trees in the picnic chairs John Constable had used for his paints two years earlier when doing the large canvas showing Salisbury Cathedral in sunlight; as an appreciation for his constant use of this lawn, he had dashed off a wonderful watercolor sketch of the towers, which he had given Emily on his departure; it hung in the main room in a fine oak frame which she had cut and nailed herself.

The Saltwoods of Salisbury had not survived for nearly two centuries, during which people of influence had tried to wrest Captain Nicholas Saltwood's fortune from them, without acquiring certain shrewd skills, one of which was to marry young women of the vicinity who showed ability. Emily Saltwood had been one of the most resilient, mother of four good boys and counselor to all. She had never been afraid to pinpoint inherent dangers, nor was she now.

'How old are you, Richard? Thirty-one?' He nodded. 'And you, Vera? Twenty-nine?' She nodded.

'Then you're old enough to realize that a four-month sail to Cape Town, aboard a small ship, in close confinement . . .'

The couple found it embarra.s.sing to look at her, so she spoke with extra vigor, demanding their attention: 'Inherently dangerous, wouldn't it be?'

'I suppose so,' Richard said.

'Old romances are full of this sort of thing. Tristan and Iseult over in Cornwall. One of the Spanish kings, if I recall, and his brother escorting the bride. Are you listening to what I'm saying?'

Richard placed his hand on his mother's and said, 'I'm taking a little girl I knew at playtime . . . out to marry my brother. When I seek a wife, I'll find one for myself.'

'Those are insulting words,' Vera snapped, and for the first time the two Saltwoods looked at her as an individual and not as a prospective answer to a Saltwood family problem. She was, as Emily said, twenty-nine, tallish, thinnish, not especially beautiful of face, but lovely of voice and smile. Like many young women her age she knew how to play the piano and had taken watercolor instruction from Mr. Constable when he stayed in the village. For the moment she was reticent, but as she grew older she would become much like the woman now counseling her: a strong English wife with a mind of her own.

She had never yet been kissed by any man other than her father, and by him only rarely, but she had no fear of men and had always supposed that when the time came, her parents would find her a husband. She was a girl of spirit and rather looked forward to an interval on the frontier, always supposing that her husband would return to a position of some importance at the cathedral, in whose shadow she had been raised and intended to die.

'I'm fully aware of the dangers,' she told her putative mother-in-law, using a low, calm voice even though she realized that Mrs. Saltwood's questioning reflected on her as much as on her son.

'That's good,' Emily said with an inflection that signified: 'This meeting's over. We understand one another.' But Richard had one thing more to say: 'You must tell Vera where the idea came from that sent you to her house . . . seeking a wife ... for Hilary, that is.'

Emily laughed vigorously and took the young people's hands in hers. 'Vera, when Richard pa.s.sed through Cape Town various army friends advised him that Hilary needed a wife. It was Richard who set this all in motion. And now he proposes to complete the transaction.'

'I don't think of myself as a transaction,' Vera said.

'We're all transactions. My husband married me years ago because the Saltwood holdings needed close attention, much more than he needed a wife.'

They rose from their chairs under the oak trees and looked across at the stunning beauty of the cathedralwhich some of them might never see again.

The Alice Grace Alice Grace was a small commercial barque accustomed to freighting cargo to India but now commissioned to carry some three hundred emigrants to Cape Town, in conditions which would have terrified owners of cattle being shipped across the Channel to France. Her burthen was two hundred and eighty tons, which was significant in that by law she was ent.i.tled to carry three pa.s.sengers for every four tons; this meant that she should have sold pa.s.sage to no more than two hundred and ten emigrants. Thus, when she left port she was ninety over complement, but since most of the pa.s.sengers were charity cases, government inspectors smiled and wished her 'Good voyage!' was a small commercial barque accustomed to freighting cargo to India but now commissioned to carry some three hundred emigrants to Cape Town, in conditions which would have terrified owners of cattle being shipped across the Channel to France. Her burthen was two hundred and eighty tons, which was significant in that by law she was ent.i.tled to carry three pa.s.sengers for every four tons; this meant that she should have sold pa.s.sage to no more than two hundred and ten emigrants. Thus, when she left port she was ninety over complement, but since most of the pa.s.sengers were charity cases, government inspectors smiled and wished her 'Good voyage!'

She departed Southampton on 9 February 1820 on a gray, wintry day when the Channel looked more immense than the ocean, its waves far more menacing. For seven painful days the little craft tossed and pitched in waves that seemed determined to pull her to shreds, and all aboard who had not sailed before were convinced that they must perish. Major Richard Salt-wood, retired, who had sailed to and from India, rea.s.sured the cabin pa.s.sengers that once the Bay of Biscay was reached, the pa.s.sage would settle into a pleasant monotony in which the limited movement of the ship 'would be like a gentle lullaby, no worse.'

Especially pleased to hear this was the woman whose welfare lay in his hands. She did not accept the violent motion of the ship easily, and this irritated her, for she was grimly determined to 'make a brave show of it,' as she had promised her mother she would, and when her stomach was wrenched into convulsions by her sickness, she was ashamed of herself. She was the sole occupant of the cabin next to her brother's, as she called him, but he shared his with a captain going out to join the Gallant Fifty-ninth on the Afghan frontier, so that during the bad days she had two gentlemen to a.s.sist her.

Sure enough, when the Alice Grace Alice Grace entered the great Bay of Biscay the storms subsided and the gentle, rea.s.suring motion which Saltwood had predicted replaced the tossing. Vera came to like the motion of the ship, as he was certain she would, and for the third and fourth week the three travelers had a congenial time together, with Richard discovering what a sterling person this Vera Lambton was. Her determination was obvious, her sense of humor rea.s.suring. When children were ill, she acted as general nurse, and whenever any of the women pa.s.sengers in steerage needed attention, she was eager to help. My brother's getting a strong woman, Richard told himself, but because of a reticence which he could not have explained, he did not inform his cabin mate of Vera's destination. 'She's a family friend' was all he'd say. 'Heading out to South Africa.' entered the great Bay of Biscay the storms subsided and the gentle, rea.s.suring motion which Saltwood had predicted replaced the tossing. Vera came to like the motion of the ship, as he was certain she would, and for the third and fourth week the three travelers had a congenial time together, with Richard discovering what a sterling person this Vera Lambton was. Her determination was obvious, her sense of humor rea.s.suring. When children were ill, she acted as general nurse, and whenever any of the women pa.s.sengers in steerage needed attention, she was eager to help. My brother's getting a strong woman, Richard told himself, but because of a reticence which he could not have explained, he did not inform his cabin mate of Vera's destination. 'She's a family friend' was all he'd say. 'Heading out to South Africa.'

'She'd make some chap quite a decent wife,' the captain observed several times, but since he was much younger than Vera, and since his regiment would not allow him to marry till he was thirty, his interest in her could only be that of an observer.

Once Cape Finisterre was pa.s.sed, that bleak and ominous last outpost of European civilization, the long reach to the bulge of Africa began, and now the three travelers began to be aware of a remarkable young man, a wagon builder by trade, who had more or less a.s.sumed command below-decks. He was an attractive fellow, careful of his appearance even though the ship provided him no water for washing. His curly head and broad grin appeared wherever there was trouble. It was he who organized the teams that handled the slops; he supervised the distribution of food; and he sat as judge's clerk when the rump court belowdecks handed out penalties for such infractions as theft or pummeling another pa.s.senger.

'Name's Thomas Carleton,' he told Saltwood and the captain when they asked if he could fix their door, which had come off its hinges during a blow. 'I can fix it, sirs. With wood I can fix anything, it seems.' And as he worked, devising ingenious tools for getting around corners, he told them of his apprenticeship in a small Ess.e.x village and his removal to the more important town of Saffron Walden, not far from Cambridge University, which he had once visited.

He was a chatterbox, intensely excited about his prospects for starting a new life in the colonies: 'I can work eighteen hours a day and sleep four. Saffron Walden had prospects for everyone except me, so I kicked up me heels and was off to sea. The town's a fascinating place, you understand. Named by the father of Henry VIII, him with the wives. One of the two places in England ent.i.tled to trade in saffron, precious stuff. It makes meat taste better, but in all me days I never took a pinch of it into me mouth. Reserved for rich people.'

Vera, returning to her cabin after a stroll on the minute deckfifteen steps forward, fifteen backheard this last observation and interrupted: 'Saffron's a yellow powder, I think, and it's not used for meat. It's used for rice.' She blushed and added, 'Here I am explaining India, and both you men have been a.s.sociated with it.'

'Not I, not yet,' the captain said gallantly.

'But she's right,' Richard said. 'Saffron is yelloworange, reallyand they do use it a great deal in India. You'll grow to like it.'

'While you're here,' Vera said to the wagon builder, 'could you fix the lock on my box? The workmen threw it aboard, I'm afraid.'

Thomas Carleton left the men's cabin and moved a few paces to Vera's, where, after one quick glance at the portmanteau in which she kept her dresses, he told her that a small piece of wood must be replaced so that the screws holding the hasp could catch. 'It's no problem,' he a.s.sured her, 'always providing we can find the wood.' Together they made a quick tour of the deck, finding nothing, but when they went to the 'tween deck, where the ship's carpenter kept his cupboard, they found the piece they needed, and it was so small that the carpenter refused any payment from Vera: 'Take it and be blessed.' He was giving it not to this amiable girl but to the wagon builder, whose good work among the pa.s.sengers he had noted.

When the box was fixed, Vera thanked the young man, four years her junior, and then talked with him about conditions belowdecks. She was by no means a philanthropist, as those seeking always to do good for others were called in Englandthose busybodies who were agitating against slavery in Jamaica and child labor in Birminghambecause families like hers in Salisbury were too sensible for that. But she was interested in whatever was occurring on this tedious voyage, and on subsequent days she visited various parts of the ship with Carleton, and one night about half after ten the captain who occupied the bunk closest to the dividing wall in Richard's cabin whispered, 'I say, Saltwood! I think something interesting's going on next door.'

'Mind your business,' Richard said, but any chance of sleep was destroyed, so toward three in the morning, after a.s.suring himself that the captain was asleep, he peered into the night and saw young Thomas Carleton, he of the glib tongue, slipping out of the next-door cabin and down the ladder to his proper place below.

The next weeks, half of March and half of April, were a dismal time for Richard Saltwood; it was apparent that Vera Lambton was entertaining the young man from belowdecks three and four times a week. During the day their behavior was circ.u.mspect. They spoke casually if they chanced to meet each other as he pursued his duties, but they betrayed no sign of intimacy. On one very hot day after the Cape Verdes had been pa.s.sed and the ship was heading sharply southeastward, the ship's captain summoned both Saltwood and the young officer to a.s.sist him in a court-martial; the accusing official was young Carleton, who, as an officer in charge of maintaining discipline belowdecks, had brought charges against a pitiful specimen who on four different occasions had been caught stealing.

When the court learned that he had been shipped aboard after a chain of similar offenses in London, there could be only one logical verdict: 'Twelve lashes.' And Thomas Carleton was charged with bringing on deck all the pa.s.sengers so that they could see for themselves how crime was punished. When all were in place, ship's officers led the convicted on deck, where he was stripped to the waist, tied with his arms about the mast, and lashed with a club from whose end dangled nine cattails of knotted leather. He made no sound till the fifth stroke, then cried pitifully and fainted. The last seven lashes were delivered to an inert body, after which he was sloshed with salt water. There was no more stealing.

The flogging had a sobering effect upon theft belowdecks; some of the pa.s.sengers were a sorry lot, but most were from the st.u.r.dy and moral lower cla.s.ses, women and men who would engage in no misconduct, and they rebuked those who did. One man, nearing fifty and with two sons, grabbed Carleton's arm as the young man hurried past one afternoon and pulled him into a corner.

'Laddie,' he said bluntly, 'you're treadin' on very dangerous ground.' 'What do you mean, old man?'

'Meddlin' with a lady of quality, that's what I mean.'

'I'm a man of quality,' Thomas said quickly. 'I am as strong'

'Those men in the cabin next hers, they're officers. They'll shoot you in a minute, laddie.'

'Those men are not involved with the lady, and take your hand down.'

This the older man refused to do. Instead he tightened it, saying, 'Laddie, this is a small ship. If I know, don't you suppose they know?'

For six days the warning deterred young Carleton from visiting Vera, and Richard sighed with relief at having avoided the necessity of intervening where his brother's honor was involved. At night he listened for sounds that would betray an a.s.signation, and was pleased when none came echoing through the thin wall. But on the seventh day he spotted Vera talking intently with the young wagon builder, and that night, about eleven, her door creaked open and someone slipped in.

It was, in many ways, the worst night of Richard Saltwood's life, for the lovers, having been separated for a week, clutched at each other with such pa.s.sion and noisy delight that the young captain was awakened.

'I say, Saltwood, listen to this! I say, like a pair of goats!'

The noise of love-making could not be masked. There were rumblings of the bulkhead, the squeals of a woman who had waited till her twenty-ninth year for love, and harsh pantings. Without even moving to the captain's bed, Richard could hear the lascivious echoes, and after a long, wild ecstasy in the other room, when the captain said, 'I say, that's prolonged!' confused Richard blurted out, 'And she's going out to marry my brother!'

In Saltwood's room there was silence, broken by the sounds bouncing off the bulkhead, and after a long time the captain asked in barrack-room accents, 'Well, whad'ja goin' to do?'

'What do you mean?' Saltwood asked in the darkness.

'd.a.m.nit all, man. Aren't you goin' to shoot him?' And Richard heard the hard clang of a revolver being slammed onto their table.