she saw his quick concern as he noticed her expression. He murmured an apology to the others and came to her side.
Why so serious on such a lovely day? he smiled.
I was thinking how shameless you are, Blaine Malcomess, she answered, and his smile slipped.
What is it, Centaine? How can you blatantly parade your mistress before the crowned heads of Empire, she demanded. I have no doubt it is a capital crime, you could have your head struck off on Tower Green! He stared at her for a moment, and then the grin came back, boyish and jubilant. My dear lady, there must be some way I can escape that fate. What if I were to change your status, from scarlet mistress to demure wife? She giggled. She very seldom did that, but when she did, he found it irresistible. What an extraordinary time and place to receive a proposal of marriage, and an even more extraordinary time and place to accept one. What do you think their majesties would say if I were to kiss you here and now? He leaned towards her and she leapt back startled.
Crazy man, you just wait until I get you home, she threatened. He took her arm and they went to join the company.
Weltevreden is one of the loveliest homes in the Cape, Blaine agreed. But it doesn't belong to me, and I want to carry my bride over the threshold of my own home. We cannot live in Newlands House. Centaine did not have to say more, and for a moment Isabella's ghost passed between them like a dark shadow.
What about the cottage? He laughed to banish Isabella's memory. 'It's got a magnificent bed, what else do we need? We'll keep that, she agreed. And every now and then we will slip away to revisit it. 'Dirty weekends, good- oh! You are vulgar, do you know that? So where shall we live? We will find a place. Our own special place. It was five hundred acres of mountain, beach and rocky coastline with a profusion of protea plants and grand views across Hout Bay and out to the cold green Atlantic.
The house was a huge rambling Victorian mansion, built at the turn of the century by one of the old mining magnates from the Witwatersrand, and in desperate need of the attention that Centaine proceeded to lavish upon it. However, she kept the name Rhodes Hill. For her one of its chief attractions was that a mere twenty minutes in the Daimler took her over the Constantia Nek pass and down to the vineyards of Weltevreden.
Shasa had taken over the chairmanship of Courtney Mining and Finance at the war's end, although Centaine kept a seat on the board and never missed a meeting. Now Shasa and Tara moved into the great chateau of Weltevreden that she had vacated, but Centaine visited there every weekend and sometimes more often. It gave her a pang when Tara rearranged the furniture that she had left and relandscaped the front lawns and gardens, but with an effort she managed to hold her tongue.
often these days she thought of the old Bushman couple who had rescued her from the sea and the desert, and then she would sing softly the praise song that O'wa had composed for the infant Shasa: His arrows will fly to the stars and when men speak his name it will be heard as far And he will find good water, wherever he travels, he will find good water.
Although after all these years the clicks and tones of the San language tripped strangely on her tongue, she knew that the blessing of O'wa had borne fruit. That, and her own rigorous training had led Shasa to the good waters of life.
Gradually Shasa with the help of David Abrahams in Windhoek had instilled into the sprawling Courtney Mining and Finance Company a new spirit of youthful vigour and adventure. Although the old hands, Abe Abrahams and Twenty-man-Jones, grumbled and shook their heads and although Centaine was occasionally forced to side with them and veto Shasa's wilder more risky projects, the company regained direction and increased in stature. Each time that Centaine examined the books or took her seat below her son at the boardroom table, there was less to complain about and more cause for self-congratulation. Even Dr Twenty-man-Jones, that paragon of pessimists, had been heard to mutter, 'The boy has got a head on his shoulders. And then appalled at his own lapse, he had added morosely, Mind you, it will take a full day's work from all of us to keep it there. When Shasa had been nominated as the United Party candidate for the parliamentary by-election of Hottentots Holland and had snatched a close-fought victory from his Nationalist opponent, Centaine saw all her ambitions for hi-in becoming reality. He would almost certainly be offered something more important after the next general election, perhaps the job as deputy minister of mines and industry.
After that, a full seat in the cabinet, and beyond that? She let the idea of it send little thrills up her spine, but did not allow herself to dwell on it in case the thought brought illfortune on the actuality. Still it was possible. Her son was well favoured, even the eye-patch added to his individuality, he spoke amusingly and articulately, and he had the trick of making people listen and like him. He was rich and ambitious and clever, and he had herself and Tara behind him. It was possible and more than possible.
By some remarkable dialectic contortion Tara Malcomess Courtney had retained her social conscience intact while taking up the management of the Weltevreden household as though to the manner born.
it was typical that she retained her maiden name, and that she could rush from the elegant surroundings of Weltevreden to the slum clinics and feeding centres for the poor out on the Cape flats without missing a step, taking with her larger charitable donations than Shasa really liked to part with.
She threw herself into the duties of motherhood with equal abandon. Her first three efforts were all male, healthy and rumbustious. In order of seniority they were Sean, Garrick and Michael. With her fourth visit to the childbed she produced, with little effort and time wasted in labour, her masterpiece. This one Tara named after her own mother, Isabella and from the moment he first picked her up and she puked a little sour clotted milk on his shoulder, Shasa was totally besotted with her.
Up to this time it was Tara's spirit and intriguing individuality that had kept Shasa from growing bored and responding to the subtle and less than subtle invitations that were showered on him by circling female predators.
Centaine, fully aware that Shasa's veins were charged with hot de Thiry blood, agonized that Tara seemed oblivious of the danger and dismissed her veiled warnings with an offhand, Oh, Mater, Shasa isn't like that. Centaine knew that was exactly the way he was. Mon Dieu, he started at fourteen. But she relaxed after the other woman finally entered his life in the shape of Isabella de Thiry Malcomess Courtney. It would have been so easy for a fatal slip to spoil it all, to dash the sweet cup from her lips just as she was able to savour it to the full, but now at last Centaine was secure.
She sat under the oaks beside the polo practice grounds of Weltevreden, a guest on the estate she had built up and cherished, but an honoured guest and well content. The coloured nannies had charge of the babies, Michael just a year and a bit and Isabella still at the breast.
Sean was out in the middle of the field. He sat on the pommel of Shasa's saddle, shrieking with excitement and delight, as his father ran the pony at a full gallop down between the far goal posts, brought him up short in a swirl of dust, pivoted and came back in a crescendo of hoof beats.
