driven mad by those Machiavellian scheming monsters of Paris, growled Sean, and Storm giggled delightedly. You are a scream, Daddy, she told him. Irene's father has told her she may have one of them, and Mr Leuchars is a mere tradesman! Sean blinked to hear the head of one of the largest import houses in the country so described. If Charles Leuchars is a tradesman, what, pray, am I he asked curiously. You are landed gentry, a Minister of the Crown, a General, a hero, and the zingiest man in the world. I see, he could not help but laugh, that I have a position to uphold. Ask Mr Payne to send the account to me. She hugged him again, ecstatically, and then for the first time noticed the card he still held in his hand. Oh, she exclaimed. An invitation! Not for you, my girl, he warned her, but she had taken it from his hand, and her face changed as she read the name. Suddenly she was quiet and subdued. You are sending that to that, sales person.
He frowned again, his own mood altering also. I sent it.
It was returned. He has left, without a forwarding address. General Smuts is waiting to talk to you. With an effort she recaptured the smile and skipped beside him. Let's hurry. it's serious, old Sean. They are organized, and there is no question but that they are seeking a direct confrontation. Jan Christiaan Smuts crumbled a biscuit between his fingers, and tossed it to the ducks. They squabbled noisily, splashing in the clear water and chattering their broad flat bills as they dipped for the scraps.
How many white workers will they lay off ? Sean asked. Two thousand, to begin with, Smuts told him. Probably four thousand, all in all. But the idea is to do it gradually, as the blacks are trained to replace them. Two thousand, Sean mused, and he could not help but imagine the wives, and the children, the old mothers, the dependents. Two thousand wage-earners out of work represented much suffering and misery. You like it as little as I do. The shrewd little man had read his thoughts; not for nothing did his opponents call him slim Jannie, or'clever Jannie. Two thousand unemployed is a serious business, he paused significantly. But we will find other employment. We need men desperately on the railways and on other projects like the Vaal-Harts irrigation scheme. They will not earn there the way they do in the mines, Sean pointed out. No, Jan Smuts drew out the negative thoughtfully, but should we protect the income of two thousand miners, at the cost of closing the mines themselves?
Surely it is not that critical? Sean frowned quickly. The Chairman of the Chamber of Mines assures me that it is, and he has shown me figures to support this view. Sean shook his head, half in incredulity and half in anguish. He had been a mine-owneT himself once, and he knew the problem of costs, and also the way that figures can be made to speak the language their manipulators taught. You know also, old Sean, you especially, how many others depend for life on those gold mines. It was a hard probing statement, with a point like a stiletto. The previous year, for the first time, the sales of timber pit-props from Sean's sawmills to the gold mines of the Transvaal had exceeded two million pounds sterling. The little General knew it as welt as he did. How many men are employed by Natal Sawmills, old Sean, twenty thousand? Twenty-four thousand, Sean answered shortly, one blond eyebrow lifted quizzically, and the Prime Minister smiled softly before going on. There are other considerations, old friend, that you and I have discussed before. On those occasions, it was you who told me that to succeed in the long term, our nation must become a partnership of black man and white, that our wealth must be shared according to a man's ability rather than the colour of his skin, not so? Yes, Sean agreed. It was I who said we must make haste slowly in that direction, and now it is you who hesitate and baulk. I also told you that many small steps were surer than a few wild leaps, made under duress, made only with an assegai at your ribs. I said, Jannie, that we should learn to bend so that we might never have to break. Jannie Smuts turned his attention back to the ducks, and they both watched them distractedly. Come, Jannie, Sean said at last. You mentioned other reasons. Those you have given me so far are good but not deadly urgent and I know you are politician enough to save the best until the end. Jannie laughed delightedly, almost a giggle, and leaned across to pat Sean's arm. We know each other too well. We should, Sean smiled back at him. We fought each other hard enough. They both sobered at mention of those terrible days of the civil war. And we had the same tutor, God bless him. God bless him, echoed Jan Smuts, and they remembered for a moment that colossus Louis Botha, warrior and statesman, architect of Union, and first Prime Minister of the new nation. Come, Sean insisted. What is your other reason? It is quite simple. We are about to decide who governs.
The duly elected representatives of the people, or a small ruthless band of adventurers who call themselves trade union leaders, representatives of organized labour, or quite simply international communism. You put it hard. It is hard, Sean. It is very hard. I have intelligence facts that I shall lay before the first meeting of the Cabinet when Parliament reconvenes. However, I wanted to discuss these with you personally before that meeting. I need your support again, old Sean. I need you with me at that meeting. Tell me, invited Sean. Firstly, we know that they are arming, with modern weapons, and that they are training and organizing the Mineworkers into war commandos. Jan Smuts spoke quickly and urgently for nearly twenty minutes, and when he had finished he looked at Sean. Well, old friend, are you behind me? Bleakly Sean looked out into the future, seeing with pain the land he loved once more torn by the hatred and misery of civil war. Then he sighed. Yes, he nodded heavily, I am with you, and my hand on it. You and your regiment? Jan Smuts took the big bony hand. As a Minister of the Government and as a soldier? Both, Sean agreed. All the way. Marion Littlejohn read Mark's letter, sitting on the closed seat of the office toilet, with the door locked, but her love transcended her surroundings, discounted even the hiss and gurgle of water in the cistern suspended on its rusty downpipe above her head.
She read the letter through twice, with eyes misty and a tender smile tugging uncertainly at her lips, then she kissed his name on the final page and carefully folded it back into its envelope, opened her bodice and nestled the paper between her plump little breasts. It made a considerable lump there when she returned to the main office and the supervisor looked out from his glass cubicle and made a show of consulting his watch. It was an acknowledged, if unwritten, rule in the Registrar's office that calls of nature should be answered expeditiously, and in no circumstances should the answer occupy more than four minutes of a person's working day.
The rest of the day dragged painfully for Marion, and every few minutes, she touched the lump in her bodice and smiled secretively. When at last the hour of release came, she hurried down Main Street and arrived breathless just as Miss Lucy was closing the doors of her shop. Oh, am I in time? Come in, Marion dear, and how is your young man? I had a letter from him today, she :announced proudly, and Miss Lucy nodded her silver curls and beamed through the silver steel frames of her spectacles. Yes, the postman told me. Ladyburg was not yet such a large town that it could not take an intimate interest in the affairs of all its sons and daughters. How is he? Marion prattled on, flushing and shiny-eyed, as she inspected once again the four sets of Irish linen sheets that Miss Lucy was holding for her. They are beautiful, dear, you can really be proud of them. You'll have fine sons between them. Marion blushed again. How much do I still owe you, Miss Lucy? Let's see, dear, you've paid off two pounds and sixpence. That leaves thirty shillings balance. Marion opened her purse and counted its contents carefully, then after a mental struggle reached a decision and laid a shiny golden half sovereign on the counter. That leaves only a pound. She hesitated, flushed again, then blurted out, Do you think I might take one pair with me now? I would like to begin the embroidery work. Of course, child, Miss Lucy agreed immediately. You have paid for three already. I'll open the packet Marion and her sister Lynette sat side by side on the sofa. Each of them had begun at one side of the sheet and their heads were bent together over it, the embroidery needles flicking in the lamplight as busily as their tongues. Mark was most interested in the articles I sent him on Mr Dirk Courtney and he says that he feels Mr Courtney will have a prominent place in the book, Across the room, Lyn's husband worked head down over a sheath of legal documents spread on the table before him.
He had lately affected a briar pipe, and it gurgled softly with each puff. His hair was brilliantined and brushed down to a polish with a ruler-straight parting of white scalp dividing it down the middle. Oh, Peter, Marion exclaimed suddenly, her hands stilling and her face lighting. I have just had a wonderful idea Peter Botes looked up from his papers, a small frown of annoyance crinkling the serious white brow, a man interrupted at his labour by the silly chatter of woman. You do so much work for Mr Courtney down at the bank. You've even been up to the big house, haven't you?
