The town house became the focal point of Mother’s life, I noticed, as if the farmhouse represented to her the difficult years of which she no longer wished to be reminded. Presumably she was a wealthy woman, or so people believed anyway, and she herself also gave that impression. I remember the tea cups she ordered for the town house from Worcester the year after Father’s death, white cups with gold rims that had to be washed in the wooden tub in her presence, just like the crystal glasses and decanters and the coffee cups, before being locked away in the sideboard. When she was in town she liked to entertain, and there were always visitors and overnight guests in the house: the minister called on us regularly and often stayed for dinner, for he was unmarried, and Mother befriended old Mrs Aling who had come to live with her son for a while, so that there were many visits between our house and the parsonage farther along the back street, and notes were delivered by the servants, or gifts of butter or eggs or jam.
Sometimes the two old ladies fell silent when I entered the room and sometimes when the minister came for dinner there would be a sudden hush in the large dining-room, and I would become aware of the evening chill and the glow of the lamplight on the white cloth that was always spread over the table, and the sound of our knives and forks on the plates, and I would feel threatened without knowing why. He was a very dedicated man, Mother sometimes asserted, as if defending him against blame or criticism, he was devoted to his mother, and then I saw him the way she did: the broadcloth suit, the gown with the velvet straps and the starched white bands, the soft hands and the slight lisp that set him apart from other men, the wealthy family in the Boland, the studies abroad, the gabled house on the corner where he lived, the gifts of sheep and flour from the congregation, the education and the status. One day the ladies having coffee with Mother were discussing his health and how he lived so alone, and they hinted at the possibility that he might marry. “He’s twenty-five already,” old Tant Gesina Nel remarked, and cast a speculative eye on me where I sat to one side. “Let met see, how old are you now?” All the women seated in a semicircle with folded hands suddenly looked at me calculatingly, the way they inspected the crystal decanters and the gold-rimmed cups, so that I could see them working out how many years I was his senior and if I were too old for him, and I experienced the same momentary panic as that evening when old Tant Mietjie had sent Jasper to me across the dance floor. He was a quiet, pale, sickly young man who put me off with his soft voice and his soft hands, his sudden preoccupations and inexplicable silences. What had Mother been hoping for? For a while there were visits back and forth, and notes and invitations were exchanged, for a while he was a regular visitor, but his health deteriorated and eventually gave out, and after a few years he received his demission and returned to the Boland: he never served elsewhere and never married, and Mother never mentioned him again. She nonetheless continued with her efforts to decorate the town house, and in the voorhuis and dining-room we had paraffin lamps on brass stands at a time when only the church and parsonage were illuminated with paraffin lamps.
The women examined me critically for a moment, but it was only too clear that I found no favour in their eyes and the possibilities they had briefly foreseen received no further consideration: I was evidently unsuitable, even for Mr Aling. I was the unmarried daughter who assisted Mother, and after Mr Aling’s departure it never again occurred to anyone that life could hold anything more for me. Sometimes some old man or farmer from the district still came to me with a document to decipher or a letter to read or write, but with the arrival of the minister and later the magistrate, it happened less often. In church I sat alone while Mother took her place among the wives of the elders. There were no further prospects for my life, and any plans or hopes for the future were for Maans’s sake: there had still been the passing possibility of Mr Aling as a suitable husband for me, but it was of minor importance, and the chief goal that was being pursued with the gold-rimmed cups and paraffin lamps, with the hospitality in town and the large gatherings now taking place on the farm regularly, was to find Maans a bride who would befit his dignity and meet the high standards set by Mother herself.
In these years I began to notice how often Maans’s name cropped up in Mother’s conversations as she entertained guests: “Maans,” she always said with slight emphasis, or to people who did not know him, “my grandson”, with the same almost acquisitive emphasis, and when she spoke of him it was with a certain complacency they must have found strange, for there was no apparent reason for it. “Well, won’t it be a lucky girl who gets her hands on Maans,” old Oom Andries Nel chuckled one Sunday morning as the congregation stood talking after church, and the bystanders laughed in agreement. Overhearing it, I did not immediately understand the words or the reaction, as was often the case, but later I began to understand why the parents of grown daughters were calling on Mother, why their visits were fraught with so much pent-up tension as she inspected and evaluated the girls, and why she sometimes reacted with unwarranted vehemence when the name of a particular girl was mentioned, because it was someone branded as an outcast who would never find favour in her eyes. In my innocence I had seen Maans only as my brother’s son, the hardworking and dutiful young farmer who did not drink, and only now did I see him through the eyes of the community as the unmarried grandson who had inherited richly from both grandfathers and who would be a good match for any girl who could win Mother’s approval. I do not believe Maans himself had any say in the matter, and if he had any wishes or dreams himself, he did not express them. I knew he once wanted to be a soldier because I read his letter to Father and Mother, I knew he wanted to go to the diggings because I was present when he mentioned it to Mother, but he never spoke like that again, a friendly, smiling, agreeable but reticent young man who shared his thoughts with no one. He tended to walk with downcast eyes; when he looked up, he made no eye contact and when he did meet your eyes, his own eyes were veiled, as if he were unwilling to give anything away. But that was when he was a young man, and over the years that changed too.
Could there have been someone for whose sake Maans would have straightened his shoulders and whose eyes he would have met, someone in whose company, hesitant and stuttering, he could have found the words to express what he really felt inside? I know so little of him, actually, for in those years Mother and I were often in town, and even on the farm I did not see much of him, for he was usually busy, and in Mother’s presence he always played the role of the caring grandson. Did he have friends whose company he sought out after church services or meetings, with whom he went for walks after Nagmaal in town, in the twilight, along the long straight street, with the water glistening in the furrows?