The Covenant (94 page)

In strict obedience to John Calvin’s teaching, he was convinced that every human being he met was destined either for heaven or for hell, and he usually knew which; but this did not mean that he treated the condemned with any less benevolence than he treated the saved, and in the final moments whenever a dying person asked, “Dominee, am I to be saved?” he replied, “I am not a dominee, and I often wonder whether I am saved. This crooked back. This blemished eye. All I know about you is what I know about myself. In this life God has been just to me, and I’m sure He will be so in the next.”

The Van Doorns became personally affected by Nel’s dual functions when the old grandmother fell ill. Wilhelmina was past sixty and her life was ending in a painful sickness. Nel, hearing of this, closed school and rode the horse his farmers had given him over to De Kraal, where he said simply, “I am told Ouma is dying.”

“She is,” Tjaart said, tears marring his broad face and beard. “She built this farm.” He led Nel to the dark room in which the old woman lay, and the first thing Theunis did was open the blinds and the windows. He then stepped to the bedside and spoke to Wilhelmina as if she were one of his scholars: “Now tell me how you got this farm,” and when she had spoken only a few words, he interrupted, ran to the kitchen and told Tjaart, “You must assemble all the children, immediately. Ouma wants to talk with them.”

She had in no way indicated that she wished to speak with her grandchildren, but Nel recognized that she possessed words of importance which ought to be passed from one generation to the next. So when they were all assembled, Nel arranged them in the sickroom and said, “The generations of man are but as the winnowing of grain, and when the chaff is blown aside, the wheat must be treasured.”

“What in hell is he talking about?” Tjaart whispered.

“This Ouma who lies here with us has had a powerful life, and you must know about it, and tell it to your children’s children.” And with this he started Wilhelmina on the story of how she had come to De Kraal.

In a wispy voice, sensing that she had only hours to live, she began: “I lived by the sea in a family that knew not God, and a passing smous told me that up north a good man had lost his wife, so I got on my horse, and without saying goodbye to anyone I left that wrong house, rode north and told your father …” She was speaking to Tjaart, who listened dumfounded.

“They called your father the Hammer, which was an ugly name, really, and not at all the proud one he thought. But we needed a Hammer. Forty times or more he rode off, and always I prayed that I would see him come back.”

One thing worried her: “Lodevicus died because he did a wrong thing. He offered to betray his government. I am ashamed …” Here she broke down momentarily, then said an unfortunate thing: “I want to tell you about Nachtmaal at Graaff-Reinet. We went four times, I think, and the farmers were always glad …”

At the mention of Nachtmaal, Tjaart thought hungrily of that exquisite girl, but he stopped when he became aware that someone near him was sobbing. It was Minna. Death she could tolerate, but Nachtmaal carried memories too bitter to accept. Dashing from the death-room, she ran from the house and toward the hills that protected De Kraal.

“You must find her a husband,” the dying Ouma said. “I rode alone more than a hundred miles to find your father, Tjaart.”

One of the children asked, “Were there lions when you rode, Ouma?”

“There were lions,” she said.

When Theunis Nel began riding over to the Van Doorn farm after the death of Wilhelmina, it was ostensibly to report on the progress of the children, but after a third visit Jakoba took Tjaart aside: “When he first came I thought it was to have a good meal. You know how the Bronks scrimp on food.”

“He eats practically nothing.”

“Do you know why? He’s courting Minna. It’s ridiculous. Tell him to stay away.”

“Minna!” Tjaart sat down heavily. “Do you think …”

That afternoon he rode over to the school and invited Theunis Nel to dine, and the eagerness with which the little schoolmaster accepted convinced Tjaart that Jakoba had made a shrewd guess. That night both the Van Doorns scanned the teacher as he toyed with his food, and after he departed they whispered together.

“It’s wrong, Tjaart. He’s older than you.”

“I’m not so old.”

“But Minna’s—”

“I know what Minna is. She’s nearly sixteen, a woman without a
man. And she’s not so well-favored that she’ll easily catch a good one now.”

These blunt truths brought tears, and Jakoba asked, “What can we do?”

“We can encourage Theunis Nel.”

“You can’t mean to marry her?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“But she’s a girl. He’s an old man.”

“Any woman past fifteen is thirty years old, or forty, or fifty, or whatever is required. When Nel comes to sit with Minna, you make him welcome.”

But how to inform the schoolmaster that he was free to sit with Mejuffrouw van Doorn in the opening stages of a formal courtship? Tjaart solved the problem in what he deemed a subtle way: “Theunis, I’ve ridden over here to tell you that you’ve done wonders with our grandchildren. I have a daughter, you may have met her, I think. She ought to learn her letters, too, and we will pay you extra …”

“I’m sure I could arrange some free time,” Nel said, and he entered upon the most hectic period of his life: school all day, sick-comforting many nights, nine miles to De Kraal; instructing Minna at night, and helping everywhere on unforeseen tasks.

Sometimes Tjaart and Jakoba would peer into the kitchen, and there would be the schoolmaster, gazing raptly at Minna as she laboriously copied her alphabet. “I wonder if she knows?” Tjaart asked, and Jakoba said, “Women always know.”

And one night after Nel had departed, so weary that he fell asleep on his horse and allowed the beast to take him back to the school, Minna told her parents, “I think he wants to speak with you, Father.” But having reported this, as she had promised Theunis she would, she burst into tears. “But I’m in love with Ryk Naudé. I always will be.”

“Minna,” her mother said sternly, “he’s gone.”

“But I can’t marry that schoolmaster.”

Jakoba shook her and said, “When a woman’s past fifteen she must make the best bargain.”

“You want me to marry him?”

“You heard what Nel said. ‘The generations of man are but as the winnowing of wheat.’ ”

“I still don’t know what that means,” Tjaart protested.

“It means a woman must do what she has to,” Jakoba said.

Two nights later Theunis Nel, wearing the best clothes he could
command, appeared in the kitchen, and when Minna spread her papers, he brushed them aside: “Tonight I speak with you, Mijnheer van Doorn.”

“Yes?” Tjaart said.

“Mijnheer van Doorn”—the schoolmaster spoke as if he were sixteen and Tjaart seventy—“I have the great honor of asking whether I might have the hand of your daughter Minna …”

When Minna heard these fateful words and saw the pitiful man that spoke them she might have broken into a sob had not her mother anticipated such a scene and grabbed her daughter’s wrist furiously, as if to say, You cannot.

“I am older,” Nel continued, “and have no farm …”

“But you’re a good man,” Jakoba said, and she pushed her daughter forward.

“Theunis,” Tjaart said, “we welcome you into our family.”

“Oh!” the schoolmaster gasped. Recovering his composure, he said, “Can we all ride to Graaff-Reinet for the wedding?”

“Not in these troubled times,” Tjaart said. “But you can start the marriage, and whenever a dominee comes this way …”

“I could not,” the devout little man protested, unable to imagine living with a woman before vows had been solemnized. “I must pray on this.”

“Go ahead,” Tjaart said, eager to have his daughter married. “But I’ve noticed that whenever men pray on this subject, the answer’s always yes. Do you want Minna to ride with you to Bronk’s?”

“I must pray.”

It was Minna who answered that particular prayer. “You heard what Wilhelmina did when she married Lodevicus. She rode one hundred miles. The school’s nine miles. I’m riding with you.” Tjaart van Doorn had found a son-in-law.

In December 1834 it seemed as if all of Tjaart’s uncertainties were laid to rest. Theunis and Minna returned to help run the farm, and the English government began to show common sense in running the country. But almost immediately trouble resumed, for the Xhosa launched a series of forays deep into Boer country, and all commandos were summoned to Grahamstown to strengthen the English regular troops and their civilian helpers like Saltwood. “We’re dealing
not with hundreds of Xhosa warriors,” the commanding officer said, “but thousands. An invasion of our colony is under way.”

After fourteen rugged days in the saddle, Tjaart’s men were given a week’s furlough; they were farmers, not soldiers, and their first responsibility lay in ensuring the safety of their homestead and flocks. As the tired men rode back to Grahamstown, a place Tjaart had grown to love for its hospitality, Saltwood spoke seriously: “Piet Retief is talking about pulling out of here and emigrating north. If that good man leaves, it’s obvious to me you’ll all go. I think that’s a mistake. You and I have proved that Boers and Englishmen can live together.”

“Your laws go against the Bible.”

“Against the Old Bible, not the New.”

“It’s the Old that counts.”

“Be that as it may, if you ever decide to go north, I’d be very interested in your farm. It’s the best in this area.”

“I’d not care to sell.”

“Then why did you buy that new wagon?”

Tjaart reflected on this. He refused to concede that he had acquired the wagon in order to emigrate, even though his wife had been counseling this for some time. “I bought it because a farmer needs good tools,” he had told his sons. But gradually he admitted that he might also have done so because there was in the air a desire for life unimpeded by English law and custom. Perhaps Jakoba had been right. Perhaps they should go north and form a new nation.

But such thoughts fled from him when he and De Groot came over the last hill to De Kraal, for from its summit they looked down on a scene of devastation: all parts of the barn that were not of stone were burned away; the wooden shed attached to the house was burned; and in the space between barn and house stood what had been the new wagon, all parts charred and shattered.

“Great God!” Tjaart shouted, spurring his horse to find what might have happened to his family. “De Groot!” he cried from the ashes. “They’ve all been killed.”

But a search of the ruins uncovered no bodies, and now Tjaart feared that his family had been taken captive. A wide-ranging search for spoor finally disclosed a trail leading to a faraway glen, and there they found Theunis Nel, the women, the children and the slaves—safe and hungry. His sons had been slain.

“Theunis saved us,” Jakoba said quietly when Tjaart embraced her.

“How?”

A Coloured servant, grateful that he was still alive, replied, “Two guns. We fight one hour. We move back, step by step. We kill many. They go.”

Theunis had supervised the brilliant retreat which had saved the remnants of the Van Doorn family. Curiously, he had fired neither of the guns; Jakoba had used one, a Coloured shepherd the other. But it had been Theunis who had kept the group together and picked the route of their escape.

When Tjaart asked the would-be dominee, “How did you find the courage, Theunis?” Nel replied, “I had to. Minna’s pregnant, you know.”

Six hundred miles away in Cape Town it was New Year’s Eve, and guests at the Governor’s Ball were saying it was the finest entertainment ever staged at the Cape. The ladies and gentlemen of the capital were resplendent in modish suits and gowns, but what really gave dazzling romance to the occasion were the immaculately uniformed English officers who moved through the festive crowd like valiant princes. The guests had come from every corner of the western Cape, and among them were the Trianon Van Doorns, one of the most prosperous of the older Cape Dutch families.

There were now more than twenty thousand people in the bustling town, a chaotic mix of wild irreverent seaport and nascent commercial center. Shops offering the fashions of Europe, fine blended teas and spices of Ceylon and Java, exquisite silks from China; little nooks where silversmiths crafted their precious wares; and a gentleman like Baron von Ludwig, who could advise on snuffs and tobaccos—all flourished. Comfortable hotels and clubs where the latest news from “home” could be pondered at leisure stood alongside bawdy taverns with their Gentoo hostesses, stable yards, chandlers, the workshops of Malay carpenters, alleys jammed with the shacks of Coloureds and poor whites.

The gentry lived well in their fine town houses or in the gabled grandeur of their farms, devoting their energies to establishing the great Cape families of the future while debating such disparate subjects as the vexatious loss of their slaves and the newfangled bathing
machine that would enable them to immerse their bodies in the Atlantic, “a process which guarantees medicinal benefit.”

Much of the talk on this night at all the ball centered upon the hunt, that New Year’s Day event featuring scarlet-jacketed men led by the governor himself in thunderous pursuit of the fox of the veld, the jackal. “Damn good job, too,” one crusty major cried. “Gives one a touch of the old country, eh, what? Helps rid the farmer of his pests. Sporting show, what? Takes an English countryman to show these Boers how to make the best of this country.” He sealed his opinion with a mighty draught of port.

Outside the Castle, this New Year’s was special too; the black and brown slaves were enjoying their first day of freedom. A huge crowd of these persons, with a horde of children, had gathered at the Lutheran church, their eye on the steeple clock that would announce the New Year. The children were whooping and yelling, impatient for the giant fireworks promised for midnight. At dawn next day they would receive their presents, as always.

At Government House the regimental band, augmented by the best town musicians, struck up another waltz, and there was an enthusiastic cheer as the garrison’s lieutenant-colonel led his pretty wife onto the floor. Henry George Wakelyn Smith was a reedy, hawk-faced young officer whose reputation pleased both his soldiers and the Cape civilians. He had conducted himself with rare bravery while serving under the Duke of Wellington in the Spanish campaign against Napoleon, and had been honored, but he insisted upon being known as plain Harry Smith, one of fourteen children from an impoverished family. And he positively loved playing at war.