each pyramid of companies stood alone and separated. This separation seemed to extend beyond finance or business, and Mark had found no evidence of any contact between the two men at the social level, in fact active hostility between them was indicated by the sudden change in the Ladyburg Lantern's attitude to the father, once the son took control of its editorial policy.
Yet he was not entirely convinced. Fergus MacDonald had repeatedly warned him of the perfidious cunning of the bosses, of all wealthy men. They will go to any lengths to hide their guilt, Mark, no trick is too low or despicable to cover the stains of honest workers blood on their hands. Perhaps Mark's first concern must be to establish beyond doubt that he was hunting only one man. Then, of course, the next move must be to go back to Ladyburg, to try and provoke another attack, but this time he would be ready for it and have some idea from which direction it would come. His mind went back to the way in which he and Fergus MacDonald had used Cuthbert, the dummy, to draw fire and force the enemy to reveal himself, and he grinned ruefully at the thought that this time he must do Cuthbert's job himself. He felt for the first time a fear he had not known in France before a shoot, for he must go out against something more formidable and ruthless than he had ever believed possible before, and the time was fast approaching.
He was distracted then by another massive epistle from Ladyburg, one that gave him honest cause for delaying direct action.
My dearest darling, What great news I have for you! ! If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then he Jar she! ) must go to the mountain. My sister and her husband are going to Durban for four days holiday, and they have asked me to join them. We will arrive on the fourteenth, and will be staying at the Marine Hotel on the Marine Parade won't we be posh!
Mark surprised himself by the strength of his pleasure and anticipation. He had not realized the affection that he had slowly accumulated at such long remove for this willing and friendly creature. He was surprised again when he met her, both of them dressed with obvious pains and attention to detail, both in an agony of shyness and restraint under the surveillance of Marion's sister.
They sat on the hotel veranda and stiffly sipped tea, making small talk with the sister while surreptitiously examining each other over the rim of their cups.
Marion had lost weight, Mark saw immediately, but would never know that the girl had almost starved herself to do so in anticipation of this moment; and she was pretty, much prettier than he remembered or than her photograph suggested. More important was her transparent wholesomeness and warmth. Mark had been a lonely boy for most of his life, but more particularly so in these last weeks, living in his small dingy room with only the cockroaches and his plans for company.
Now he reacted to her like a traveller coming in out of the snow-storm responds to the tavern fire.
The sister took her duties as chaperone seriously at first, but she was only five or six years older than Mark, and perceptive enough to be aware of the younger people's attraction for each other and to recognize the essential decency of the boy. She was also young enough and herself so recently married as to have sympathy for them. I would like to take Marion for a drive, we wouldn't be gone very long. Marion turned eyes as soulful and pleading as those of a dying gazelle on her sister. Oh please, Lyn. The Cadillac was a demonstration model, and Mark had personally supervised while two of the Zulu employees at Natal Motors had burnished its paintwork to a dazzle. .
He drove down as far as the mouth of the Umgeni River, with Marion sitting close and proud and pretty beside him.
Mark felt as good as he ever had in his life; dressed in fashionable style, with gold in his pocket, a big shining automobile under him and a pretty adoring girl beside him.
Adoring was the only word to describe Marion's attitude towards him. She could hardly drag her eyes from his face for a moment, and she glowed every time he glanced across at her.
She had never imagined herself beside such a handsome, sophisticated beau. Not even hex most romantic daydreams had ever included a shining Cadillac, and a decorated war hero.
When he parked off the road and they picked a path through the densely overgrown dunes down to the river mouth, she clung to his arm like a drowning sailor.
The river was in spate from some upland rainstorm; half a mile wide and muddy brown as coffee, it surged and swirled down to meet the green thrust of the sea in a leaping ridge of white water. Carried down on the brown water were the debris of the flood, and the carcasses of drowned beasts.
A dozen big black sharks were there to scavenge, pushing high up the river, their dark triangular fins knifing and circling.
Mark and Marion sat side by side on a dune overlooking the estuary. Oh, sighed Marion, as though her heart would break, we've only got four days together. Four days is a long time, Mark laughed at her, I don't know what we are going to do with it all They spent nearly every hour of it together. Dicky Lancome was most understandingwith his star salesman. Just show your face here for a few minutes every morning, to keep the boss happy, then you can slip off. I'll hold the fort for you. What about the demonstration model? Mark asked boldly.
I'll tell him you are making a sale to a rich sugar farmer.
Take it, old chap, but for God's sake, don't wrap it round a tree. I don't know how i'll ever repay you, Dicky, really I don't. Don't worry, old boy, we'll think of a way. I won't ask again, it's just that this girl is really special. I understand. Dicky patted his shoulder in a paternal fashion. Most important thing in life, a likely bit of crumpet. My heart goes out to you, old son. I'll be cheering you on in spirit every inch of the way. It's not like that, Dicky, Mark denied, blushing fiercely. Of course not, it never is. But enjoy it anyway, and Dicky winked lasciviously.
Mark and Marion, she was right, it did sound rather grand, spent their days wandering hand in hand through the city. She was delighted by its bustle and energy, enchanted by its sophistication, by its culture, its museums and tropical gardens, by its playground beachfront with myriad fairy lights, the open-air concerts in the gardens of the old fort, by the big departmental stores in West Street, Stuttafords and Ansteys, their windows packed with expensive imported merchandise, by the docks with great merchant ships lining the wharf and the steam cranes huffing and creaking above them, They watched the Indian fishermen running their surfboats out from the glistening white beach, through the marching lines of green surf to lay their long nets in a wide semi-circle out into deep water. Then Marion hitched up her skirts and Mark rolled his trousers to the knee to help the half-naked fishermen draw in the long lines, until at last a shimmering silver mound of fish lay on the boat, still quivering and twitching and leaping in the sunlight.
They ate strawberry-flavoured ice-cream out of crisp yellow cones, and they rode in an open rickshaw down the Marine Parade, drawn by a leaping howling Zulu dressed in an incredible costume of feathers and beads and horns.
