“I said fourpence and fourpence it’ll be,” Barney said. “I’ll pay you when I get the book. Now, about diamonds…”
Weston looked at him seriously, his smile gone.
“Barney,” he said, “we joke about many things, or else we’d go crazy in this town. But we don’t joke about diamonds.”
“Neither do I,” Barney said evenly. “What d’you have?”
Weston looked at him a long moment, and then opened a pouch of his belt. He brought out two stones and placed them on Barney’s palm. Barney pulled his loupe from his pocket and began to examine the stones one by one. He had spent many hours with Harry over the trays in Harris’s shop, examining stones that belonged to the trader, and he had learned a great deal. The stones he was looking at were of excellent quality, each about two carats in weight, he judged, and each of a shape that would cut to at least a carat if not more. He took his scale from its box and weighed them; the total weight came to four point three one carats. He put the loupe aside and looked at Weston.
“They’re beautiful stones, Jerry,” he said sincerely. “You could sell them stones directly to any trader in town.”
Weston took a deep breath. He wrinkled his forehead and looked a bit embarrassed. He glanced over at Red, but his partner merely shrugged and went back to his work, leaving Weston to handle the situation. Weston scratched his head.
“Barney, I don’t quite know what to say.” He looked as if he were truly at a loss for words, a rare thing for Jerry Weston. “I’m used to wallopers coming in here and telling me my stones have sixteen flaws each way from center, or that they’re yellow as daisies, as if I were color-blind or just started sorting this morning. I’m used to them telling me no trader in his right mind would touch my stones with a honey-dipper stick, and only the inherent goodness of the kopje walloper’s heart permits him to take food from his children’s mouths in order to see that I don’t starve.” He sighed deeply, and shook his head. “It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes of a Piccadilly tart.”
He leaned forward earnestly.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something, Barney! I know the stones are perfect, just as I know the sun rises in the east! And I know I can sell them to any diamond dealer in town. That’s exactly what I had planned to do. That’s why they’re separated from the others.” He studied Barney’s face carefully. “Now, I have a question for you. You tell me this: what do you think you could get from a trader on the street — say a trader like Harris or Beit — for these stones?”
Harris was the dealer where Harry worked; Beit was the largest diamond buyer in Kimberley; according to rumor he was Rhodes’ partner in the dealing as Rhodes was with Rudd in the mining. Barney thought carefully, then shrugged. “I would say, at least a pound a carat; maybe more. Those stones would go for thirty, thirty-five shilling a carat in London.”
“To the penny what I figured,” Weston said quietly. “Do you want to buy them for a pound a carat?”
Barney’s eyes lit up; then his face fell. “You said you don’t joke about diamonds!”
“I don’t,” Weston said flatly. “Well?”
“Then, sure, I want to buy ’em! What else you got?”
Weston pulled out the balance of the stones culled that day, stones that would cut quite nicely to half or three quarters of a carat, or stones with tiny flaws, some with a slightly yellowish tinge, stones that would make a fine border to a necklace, or act as baguettes to an opal or tourmaline ring. Barney examined them all carefully and fully, and made as good an offer as he felt he could make. In several instances he recognized that he may have offered more than he could get for the stones when he went to sell them, but he knew that in order to get started, to take business from the established kopje wallopers, he had to make concessions; and the only concessions he could make were in price. When he was done, he put his scale back in its box, tucked the diamonds he had purchased carefully into the various pouches of his newly acquired belt, handed over the fourteen pounds and change to Jerry Weston, and climbed back into the cart. Jerry Weston reached up and shook his hand, smiling at him genially.
“You’re apt to turn this town on its ear,” he said, “paying honest prices for diamonds.”
“If I don’t go stony,” Barney said with a grin.
“Son, you won’t go stony,” Weston said with conviction. He put on his serious air. “Mister, if you’d like to wager on that, I’d be willing to give you some very interesting odds.”
Barney laughed and let the horse lead him from the yard. It occurred to him he had never even learned the horse’s name, but it didn’t seem to make any difference; there never seemed to be a need to give the horse directions. In fact, Barney was sure that at dusk, no matter where they were, the horse would automatically head for the stable.
He thought back on his dealing with Jerry Weston. He was sure the larger of the two stones alone would bring him a reasonable profit, not to mention the smaller; and the others, on balance, he was sure, would not cost him a penny if they didn’t actually bring him additional profit. And he had made a start, a purchase at his very first stop; and a purchase he was sure very few, if any, other wallopers would have been able to consummate. He leaned back, the reins loose, enjoying being carried, albeit at a snail’s pace. Now that he was a property owner of a sort — for surely a horse and cart were property — and now that he was in an established business — for surely the buying and selling of diamonds was an established business — there was no longer any good reason not to go and visit Fay Bees. He had purposely attempted not to think of her during the long months when he had been working day and night, saving his pennies, but his attempt had never really worked; Fay was seldom far from his thoughts. He realized there was still no chance at all for him with anyone that beautiful, but it would be good to see her again, just to look at her, possibly to touch her, but definitely to dream. He could recall, as if it were just that day, walking beside her on the trek, the feeling of absolute normality in having her next to him. He could picture her blond beauty, her budding but lovely figure, her neat movements. He could feel her arms about him on the bank of the river; he could still smell the freshness of her hair.
Of course, there was also the good chance that she was in love with some tall, handsome fellow in Bultfontein — if she wasn’t married by this time. He was in the midst of picturing Fay Bees — her name wouldn’t still be Bees, of course — married and bent over a scrubbing board while her handsome husband sat around doing nothing but drinking and smoking — when he became aware that the horse had stopped. A sorter was looking at him curiously; they were in another yard. The sorter was a man he didn’t recognize, but the man apparently knew him.
“Hi, Barney.” A habitué of the Paris Hotel, no doubt. “The old man hire you to drive his rig today?”
“No,” Barney said, climbing down. He was aware that he’d probably say the same bloody thing that day and many other days until he was fully established. “It’s me own rig now. Bought it off the old man just yesterday…”
Barney finished his calculations and looked across the evening fire at Harry. His expression was anything but happy. “Eight quid four and tuppence,” he said, and sighed.
Harry stared at him in surprise. “Why the God-’elp-us face? Over eight pounds clear the first day? You ought to be jumping for joy!”
Barney shook his head stubbornly. “Well, I ain’t! Oh, sure, it’s a decent day’s pull; fifty quid a week if it keeps up. Maybe even work up to a hundred a week in time. That’s no money.”
“No money! One hundred pounds a week? That’s as much as Pa makes in six months! More!”