‘And a splendid repast to conclude the day!’ Renzi added, in praise of the roast hindquarter of bontebok. ‘The bounty of this fine land continues to amaze.’
His heart was full. The Cape was all that could be wished for in a new life, healthy and with limitless prospects for growth. Here, Cecilia and he would put down roots and begin their life together.
‘Do you mind, sir?’ Van der Riet drew out a long clay pipe and stoked it with dagga, the sweet Cape-grown tobacco. ‘I find it eases the mind after a day’s concentration.’
After a few satisfied puffs, he went on quietly, ‘You wonder why we accept your rule so readily. I will tell you. It is because we hanker after the lekker lewe – the good life that comes from the taming of a hard land. Any that can provide us with the security and freedom to do this, we will submit to.’
Unspoken was the other side of the bargain: if security was not provided, neither would be the loyalty. ‘I understand you, Mijnheer,’ Renzi replied. If the French established themselves ashore, this tenuous fealty would evaporate and they would be left to their own slender resources. But, of course, all they had to do now was to hang on until the consolidating troops and support arrived from England and they would be impregnable. But in the meantime . . .
The landdrost took another puff. ‘Did you find your expedition to the mountains agreeable?’
‘Why, yes, Mijnheer.’ It had been only a few days, travelling into the Hottentots-Hollands, but he had encountered a country of fierce grandeur that was boundless and challenging – and one that Cecilia would certainly adore. It had been a dream-like progress: the jog and jingle of the long narrow ox-wagon, the voorloper with an immense whip driving his sixteen wide-horned oxen along crude tracks over the mountains; the slow climb into the dark, contorted ranges rearing steeply from the flats; impossible hairpin turns with jagged crags to one side and a precipice to the other; then a perilous scramble into the Drup Kelder, a cave of ghostly petrified columns and icy streams.
Before sunset each day a halt was called and a fire started while the wagons were outspanned. Then, a delicious supper of ostrich eggs cooked in the embers under a blaze of stars and, after a companionable Cape brandy, a comfortable bed had been waiting in the wagon.
As they had wended their way back, Renzi made acquaintance of the mountain fynbos and the carrion flower, and quantities of springbok antelopes performing their curious pronking. No giraffes or lions, but once he caught sight of a tufted-eared lynx peering resentfully over a rock ledge.
Renzi took another sip of his wine. ‘Mijnheer, Franschoek is a singular place, set so in the mountains. Here, you’re rightly content with your vines, but what about your farmers there?’
The landdrost courteously explained: it was the Boer farmers who were the pioneers in this, pushing the boundaries of settlement into the trackless interior; they laid down their isolated farms and by their own hands carved a living out of the hard ground. They were a stern, independent breed.
Of another sort were the Trekboers who, like desert nomads, moved about the country with their herds, living out of their wagons, while some went even further and scorned any contact with conventional civilisation to the point at which they turned their backs on even their Dutch kin.
And the original inhabitants? The Khoikhoi were peaceable cattle-herders who had come to terms with the white man, but the rising power were the Xhosa, whose warriors were displacing the Khoikhoi and pressing the settlements back from beyond the mountains to the east. An uneasy truce was keeping them at bay along the Great Fish River but anything could set them off on the blood trail again.
Renzi was building a picture of a country that was not yet a nation but had its future before it – could it be said that the accident of external forces that had brought them to take the Cape would be to its eventual advantage? The prime motivator for the British Empire had always been less about glory and more about trade, the establishing of markets and sources of raw materials, and thus great efforts were always made to bring peace and the security to allow this to flourish.
What would not be possible here, given a long period of peace and the world’s markets thrown open? If he and Cecilia could—
A polite clearing of the throat interrupted his thoughts. ‘Er, shall we go in, Mr Secretary? My daughter Josina has been persuaded to play the fortepiano for us and is anxious for your opinion of her Clementi . . .’
As he rose Renzi had a fleeting image of his friend, the picture of a thoroughbred seaman. Now their paths would diverge into two very different life courses. At this very moment where was he? What new adventure was L’Aurore’s captain sailing into without him?
From where he lay, Kydd could make out the vast black bulk of Table Mountain blotting out the stars – the Southern Cross constellation was just about to be swallowed up in its turn. The house seemed to be in a charged silence, broken only by the mournful baa of a distant goat and the muffled sound of revelry down by the water’s edge.
He smothered a sigh. There was sleepy movement next to him and a pair of legs slowly entwined in his as a female voice demanded huskily, ‘Kiss me again.’ Her resulting passion released his own in an erotic flood, and then they lay together in a long, silent embrace.
With a final caress she rolled over, but for some reason sleep eluded Kydd. Was it the strong Dutch coffee they had shared on arriving here – or the heady shock of the evening when the distant and haughty Thérèse had melted into the passionate and imperious woman who now shared her bed with him?
It had happened so quickly: he had paid his call at her town address, a large and well-appointed house where she was apparently the only lodger, and been received graciously. He had stayed to take tea and was able to tell her something of his recent ordeal. She had listened politely but when he had asked about her own tribulations as a French royalist noble she had declined to talk about them, saying they were too painful to her.
Instead she had asked about his naval career, anxious to be reassured that everything was being done to prevent a French onslaught. He had answered soothingly but she had pressed the issue, asking if he was privy to the highest levels, that they might be concealing the truth from the people. Only when he told her that he regularly spoke with both the governor and the colonial secretary personally were her fears allayed and the first real warmth entered her smile.
She talked a little of the wine estate her father cultivated up-country, as close to the climate of their ancestral estate in France as it was possible to achieve and ended with a vague suggestion that he might visit her there some day.
Before leaving he had found himself inviting her to the theatre the following day, being surprised and pleased when she had accepted. Accompanied for the sake of propriety by the unsmiling Widow Coetzee, the keeper of the lodging house, they had attended the fine theatre in Riebeeck Square.
Kydd had been gratified at the astonishment and envy he saw on all sides, for he was aware that this daughter of a baron was not known for appearances in public, let alone accompanied by a friend of the opposite sex.
Afterwards he had returned her to the residence and accepted the offer of refreshment. When Vrouw Coetzee retired, they were left alone. He had been taken aback by her ardour – but had responded in like kind, hers a possessive, hungry need, his a startled but willing response.
With a glance at the now sleeping Thérèse, he could only wonder where it would all lead.
Kydd waited impatiently at the old jetty for the dawn when he would be seen from L’Aurore and a boat sent. He watched as the light spread, taken with the delicate tints falling on the seascape. It would be hours before the sun appeared over Table Mountain, and until then the entire town and anchorage would be spared its heat.