That is not your only trespass against your brother, his conscience
reminded him. Who sired the child he calls his son?
Whose loins sowed the seed that became man-child in the belly of Anna,
your brother's wife?
'It has been a long time, Nkosi.- Mbejane had seen the expression on
his face as Sean looked towards Theuniskraal and remembered those
things from the past that were better forgotten.
'Yes. ' Sean roused himself, and straightened in the saddle.
'A long road and many years. But now we are home again.'
He looked back towards the village, searching the quarter beyond the
main street and the hotel for the roof of that little cottage on Protea
Street. As he found it, showing through the tall, fluffy blue gum
bees, there was a lift in his mood, a new excitement. Did she live
there still? How would she look-a little grey surely; had her fifty
years marked her deeply, or had they treated her with the same
consideration which she showed all those with whom she came in
contact?
Had she forgiven him for leaving without a farewells Had she forgiven
Ins long years of silence since then? Did she understand the reasons
why he had never written-no word or message, except that anonymous gift
of ten thousand pounds he had transferred to her bank account. Ten
thousand miserable little pounds, which he had hardly noticed among all
the millions he had won and lost in those days long ago when he was one
of the lords of the Witwatersrand gold fields
Again the sense of guilt closed in upon him. As he knew with utter
certainty that she had understood, that she had forgiven.
For that was Ada, the woman who was his stepmother-and whom he loved
beyond the natural love one owes their own full blooded mother.
'Let's go down,' he said and kicked his horse to a canter.
'Is this home, Pa?' Dirk shouted as he rode beside him.
'Yes, my boy. This is home.'
'Will Granma be here?'
'I hope so,' Sean answered, and then softly,
'Beyond all other things, I hope that she will.
Over the bridge above the Baboon Stroom, past the cattle pens along the
fine of rail, past the old wood and iron station buildings with the
sign, white and black faded to grey,
'Ladyburg. Altitude 2,256 it.
above sea level, ' swinging left into the dusty main street which was
wide enough to turn a full span of oxen, and down to Protea Street rode
Sean and Dirk, with Mbejane and the pack-mule trailing far behind.
At the corner Sean checked his mount to a walk, drawing out the last
few minutes of anticipation until they stopped outside the wicket fence
of white that encompassed the cottage.
The garden was neat and green, gay with beds of Barberton daisies and
blue rhododendrons. The cottage had been enlarged, a new room built on
the far side, and it was crisp-looking in a coat of new whitewash. A
sign at the gate said in gold letters on a green ground, 'Maison Ada.
High-class Costumier' Sean grinned. 'The old girl's gone all French,
