A Sparrow Falls c-9 Read online

  Fred Black was interrupted by a cry and the sight of a female figure racing down the avenue of blue gum trees towards them, slim and young, with honey brown hair in a thick braid bouncing on her back, long brown legs and grubby bare feet beneath the skirts of the faded cheap cotton skirt. Mark! she cried again. Oh Mark! But she was close before he recognized her. She had changed in four years. Mary. The sadness was still on Mark, but he could not talk further now. There would be time later. Even in the sadness, he could not miss the fact that Mary Black was a big girl now, no longer the mischievous imp who once had been below his lordly notice when he had been a senior at Ladyburg High School.

  She still had the freckled laughing face and the prominent, slightly crooked front teeth, but she had grown into a big, wide-hipped, earthy farm girl, with a resounding jolly laugh. She was as tall as Mark's shoulder and her shape under the thin, threadbare cotton was rounded and full; she had hips and buttocks that swung as she walked beside him, a waist like the flared neck of a vase and fat heavy breasts that bounced loosely at each stride. As they walked, she asked questions, endless questions in a demanding manner, and she kept touching Mark, her hand on his elbow, then grabbing his hand to shake out the answers to her questions, looking up at him with mischievous eyes, laughing her big ringing laugh. Mark felt strangely restless.

  Fred Black's wife recognized him from across the yard and let out a sound like a milk cow too long deprived of her calf. She had nine daughters, and she had always pined for a son. Hello, Aunt Hilda, Mark began, and then was folded into her vast pneumatic embrace.

  You're starved, she cried, and those clothes, they stink.

  You stink too, Marky, your hair, you'll be sitting on it next. The four unmarried girls, supervised by Mary, set the galvanized bath in the centre of the kitchen floor and filled it with buckets of steaming water from the stove. Mark sat on a stool on the back veranda with a sheet around his shoulders, while Aunt Hilda sheared him of his long curling locks with a huge pair of blunt scissors.

  Then she drove her daughters protesting from the kitchen. Mark fought desperately for his modesty, but she brushed his defence aside. An old woman like me, you haven't got anything I haven't seen bigger and better. She stripped him determinedly, hurling the soiled and rumpled clothing through the open doorway to where Mary hovered expectantly. Wash them, child, and you get yourself away from that door. Mark blushed furiously and dropped quickly into the water.

  In the dusk, Fred Black and Mark sat together on the coping of the well in the yard, with a bottle of brandy between them. The liquor was the fierce Cape Smokewith a bite like a zebra stallion, and after the first sip Mark did not touch his glass again. Yes, I've thought about that often, Fred agreed, already slightly owl-eyed with the brandy. Old Johnny loved that land of his. Did he ever speak of selling it to you? No, never did. I always thought he'd be there for ever.

  Often talked of being buried next to Alice. He wanted that. When did you last see Grandpapa, Uncle Fred? Well, now, he rubbed his bald head thoughtfully, it would be about two weeks before he left for Chaka's Gate with the Greylings. Yes, that's right. Held been into Ladyburg to buy cartridges and provisions. Pitched up here one night in the old scotch-cart, and we had a good old chat He didn't say anything then, about selling? No, not a word The kitchen door flew open, spilling yellow lantern light into the yard, and Aunt Hilda bellowed at them. Food's up. Come along now, Fred, don't you keep that boy out there, teaching him your evil ways, and don't you bring that bottle into this house. You hear me! Fred grimaced, poured the last three inches of dark brown liquor into his tumbler and shook his head at the empty bottle. Farewell, old friend. He sent it sailing over the hedge, and drained the tumbler like medicine.

  Mark was crowded into the bench against the kitchen wall with Mary on one side of him and another of the big buxom daughters on the other. Aunt Hilda sat directly opposite him, shovelling food on to his plate, and loudly berating him if his rate of ingestion faltered. Fred needs somebody here to help him now. He's getting old, though the old fool doesn't know it. Mark nodded, his mouth so full he was unable to reply, and Mary reached across him for another hunk of home-baked bread that was still warm from the oven. Her big loose breast pressed against Mark and he almost choked. The girls don't get much chance to meet nice boys stuck out here on the farm. Mary shifted in her seat, and her upper thigh came firmly against Mark's. Leave the lad alone, Hilda, you scheming old woman, Fred slurred amiably from the head of the table. Mary, give Mark some more gravy on those potatoes. The girl poured the gravy, steadying herself as she leaned over towards Mark by placing her free hand on Mark's leg above the knee. Eat -up! Mary's done you a special milk tart for afters. MarYs hand still rested on his leg, and now it moved slowly but purposefully upwards. Instantly Mark's entire attention focused on the hand and the food turned to hot ashes in his mouth. Some more pumpkin, Marky? Aunt Hilda asked with concern, and Mark shook his head weakly. He could not believe what was happening below the level of the table and directly in front of Mary's mother.

  He felt a rising sense of panic.

  As casually as he could in the circumstances, he dropped one hand into his lap, and without looking at the girl, gripped her wrist firmly. Have you had enough, Mark? Yes, oh yes, indeed, Mark agreed fervently, and tried to drag Mary's hand away, but she was a big powerful lass and not easily distracted. Clear Mark's plate, Mary love, and give him some of your lovely tart. Mary seemed not to hear. Her head was bowed demurely over her plate, her cheeks were flushed bright glowing pink, and her lips trembled slightly. Beside her, Mark writhed and squirmed in his seat. Mary, what's wrong with you, girl? Her mother frowned with irritation. Do you hear me, child? Yes, Mother, I hear you. At last she sighed and roused herself. She stood up slowly and reached for Mark's plate with both hands, while he sagged slightly on the bench, weak with relief.

  Mark was exhausted from the long day's march and the subsequent excitement, but though he fell asleep almost instantly, it was a sleep troubled by dreams.

  Through a ghostly, brooding landscape of swirling mist and weird unnatural light, he pursued a dark wraith, but his legs were slowed, as though he moved through a bath of treacle, and each pace was an enormous effort.

  He knew the wraith that flitted through the mist ahead of him was the old man, and he tried to cry out, but though he strained with open mouth no sound came. Suddenly a small red hole appeared in the wraith's dark back and from it flowed a bright pulsing stream of blood, and the wraith turned to face him.

  For a moment he looked into the old man's face, the intelligent yellow eyes smiled at him over the huge spiked mustache, and then the face melted like hot wax and the pale features of a beautiful marble statue came up like a face through water. The face of the young German, at last Mark cried out and fell to cover his face. in the darkness he sobbed softly, until another sensation came through to his tortured imagination.

  He felt a slow cunning caress. The sobbing shrivelled in his throat, and gradually he abandoned himself to the wicked delight of his senses. He knew what was coming, it had happened so often in the lonely nights and he welcomed it now, drifting up slowly out of the depths of sleep, At the edge of his awareness there was a voice now, whispering, crooning gently. There now, don't fuss, there now, it's all right now, it's going to be all right. Don't make that terrible noise. He came awake gradually, for long moments not realizing that the warm firm flesh was reality. Above him were heavy white breasts, hanging big and heavy to sweep across his chest white bare skin shining in the moonlight that spilled through the window above his narrow steel bed. Mary will make it better, the voice whispered with husky intensity. Mary? he choked out the name, and tried to sit up, but she pushed him back gently with her full weight on his chest. You're mad.

  He began to struggle, but her mouth came down over his, wet and warm and all engulfing, and his struggles abated at the shock of this new sensation. He felt his sense whirl giddily.

  Against the rising turmoil
within him, was balanced the terrible things that he knew about women. Those strange and awful things that the regimental chaplain had explained to him, the knowledge that had sustained him against all the blandishments of the bold little poules of France and the ladies who had beckoned to him from the dark doorways of London's back streets.

  The chaplain had told them how two equally evil terrible consequences came from unlawful union with a woman.

  Either there was a disease that was without cure, which ate away the flesh, left a rotting hole in a man's groin and finally drove him insane, or there was a child without a father, a bastard to darken a man's honour.

  The threat was too much, and Mark tore his mouth free from the girl's sucking hungry lips and the thrusting, driving tongue. Oh God! he whispered. You'll have a baby. That's all right, silly, she whispered in a cheerful husky voice. We can get married.

  She shifted suddenly as he lay stunned by this intelligence, and she swung one knee over his supine body, pinning him under the heavy soft cushion of her flesh, smothering him with the fall of bright clinging hair. No. He tried to wriggle out from under her. No, this is mad. I don't want to marry, Yes, there, oh yes. For another instant he was paralysed by the feeling of it, and then with a violent wrench he toppled her over. She fell sideways, her hands clutched wildly at his shoulders for an instant before she went over the side of the bed.

  The washstand crashed over, and the thud of the girl's big body upon the floorboards echoed through the silent sleeping house.

  For a moment afterwards the echoes died, the silence re turned and then was split by a chorus of screams from the bedroom of the younger girls across the passage.

  What is it? bellowed Fred Black, from the big bedroom. There's somebody in the house. Get him, Fred, don't just lie thereWhere's my shotgun? Help, papa! Help! With a single bound, Mary leapt up from the bedroom floor, snatched her nightgown off the chair and swept it over her head. Mary! Mark sat up, he wanted to explain, to try and tell her about the chaplain. He leaned towards her and even in the faint moonlight he could see the fury that contorted her features.

  mary! He did not have time to avoid the blow, it came full-armed and flat-handed, smashing into the side of his head with a force that rattled his teeth and starred his vision. She was a big strong girl. When his head cleared, she was gone, but his ear still sang with the sound of a thousand wild bees.

  A dusty Daimler lorry pulled up beside Mark as he trudged along the side of the deeply rutted road with thick glass growing along the central hump.

  There was a middle-aged man and his wife in the front seat, and he called to Mark. Where are you going, son? Ladyburg sir. Jump in the back, then. Mark rode the last twenty miles sitting high on bagged maize, with a coop of cackling hens beside him and the wind ruffling his stiff newly cropped hair.

  They rattled over the bridge across the Baboon Stroom, and Mark marvelled at how it had all changed. Ladyburg was no longer a village, but a town. It had spread out as far as the stream itself, and there was a huge new goods yard below the escarpment in which half a dozen locomotives busily shunted trucks heavily laden with freshly sawn timber from the mills, or with bagged sugar from the new factory.

  The factory itself was a monument to the town's progress, a towering structure of steel girders and huge boilers.

  Smoke and steam boiled from half a dozen stacks to form a grey mist that smeared away on the gentle breeze.

  Mark wrinkled his nose at the faint stink of it on the wind, and then looked with awe down Main Street. There were at least a dozen new buildings, their ornate fagades decorated with scrolls of ironwork, and beautifully intricate gables, stained glass in the main doors and the owner's name and date of construction in raised plaster lettering across the front; but these were all overshadowed by a giant structure four stories tall, crusted with ornamentation like a wedding cake of a wealthy bride. Proudly it bore the legend Ladyburg Farmers Bank. The driver of the truck dropped Mark on the sidewalk in front of it, and left him with a cheery wave.

  There were at least a dozen motor vehicles parked among the scotch-carts and horse-drawn carriages, and the people on the streets were well dressed and cheerfullooking, the citizens of a prosperous and thriving community.

  Mark knew one or two of them from the old days, and as he trudged down Main Street with his pack stung over one shoulder, he paused to greet them. There was always a momentary confusion until they recognized him, and then, But, Marky, we heard, we thought you'd been killed in France. It was in the Gazette. The Land Deeds Registrar's Office was in the sprawled labyrinth of Government offices behind the Magistrate's Court and Police Station. There had been plenty of time to think on the long journey up from Andersland, and Mark knew exactly what he was going to do, and in what order.

  There was a cramped space in the front of the office with an uninviting wooden bench, and a plain deal counter.

  There was an elderly clerk with nearsighted eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles, and a peaked green eyeshade on his forehead. He looked like an ancient crow in his black alpaca jacket with paper guards over his cuffs, and a bony beak of a nose, as he crouched over his desk making a Herculean task of stamping a pile of documents.

  He worked on for a few minutes. Mark patiently read the Government notices that plastered the walls, until the clerk looked up at last with the exasperated air of a man interrupted in a labour that might alter the destiny of mankind. I'd like to look at a land deed, please sir A certain piece of extinguished quit-rent land situate in the division of Ladyburg being Err. No. 42 Of Division A of One. The farm known as ANDERSLAND . . .

  Deed of Transfer passed in favour of Ladyburg Estates Ltd registered at Ladyburg on ist day of June, 19. rg.

  Knowall men whom it may concern that DENNIS PETERSEN

  appeared before me, Registrar of Deeds, he, the said appearer, being duly authorized by a power of attorney executed at Ladyburg on the 12th day of May, 1919, by JOHN ARCHIBALD ANDERS which power was witnessed in accordance with law . . . and that the said appearer declared that his principal had truly and legally sold. . .

  Mark turned to the next document.

  Agreement of Sale of Immovable property That TOHNARCHIBALD ANDERS, hereinafter known as the Seller, and LADYBURG ESTATES LTD hereinafter known as the purchaser, the Farm known as ANDERSLAND, together with all improvements and buildings, standing crops, implements and livestock for the consideration of Three Thousand Pounds Sterling In witness whereof the parties set their hand.

  JOHN ARCHIBALD ANDERS (his mark) X For and on behalf of LADYBURG ESTATES LTD DIRK COURTNEY (DIRECTOR) As witnesses of the above:PIETER ANDRIES GREYLING CORNELIUS JOHANNES GREYLING Mark frowned at the two names. Piet Greyling and his son had accompanied the old man up to Chaka's Gate almost immediately after witnessing the Deed of Sale, and they had found him dead a few days later and buried him out there in the wilderness.

  General Power of Attorney in favour of DENNIS PETERSEN.

  I, the undersigned, JOHN ARCHIBALD ANDERS do hereby empower the above-mentioned DENNIS signed JOHNARCHIBALD ANDERS X (his mark)

  as witness PIETER ANDRIES GREYLING.

  CORNELIUS JOHANNES GREYLING.

  Mark pored over the bundle of stiff legal parchment with its fancy printing and red wax seals with dangling ribbons of watered silk. Carefully he copied out the names of the parties involved in the transaction into his notebook and when he had finished, the clerk who had been jealously watching his precious papers reclaimed them and reluctantly handed over an official receipt for the five-shilling search fee.

  The office of the registrar of companies was directly across the narrow lane, and here Mark was received in a different mood. The keeper of this gloomy cavern was a young lady dressed in severe dove-grey jacket and long sweeping skirt which was at odds with her lively eyes and pert air.

  The pretty little face, with freckled snub nose, lit with a quick appreciative smile as Mark came in through the door and within minutes she was helping him
in a comradely and conspiratorial manner as he perused the memoranda and articles of association of Ladyburg Estates Ltd. Do you live here? asked the girl. I haven't seen you before. No, I don't, Mark answered warily without looking up at her. He was finding it difficult to concentrate on the documents, and he remembered vividly his last encounter with a young girl. You're lucky. The girl sighed dramatically. It's so dull here, nothing to do after work in the evenings. She waited hopefully, but the silence drew out.

  The Directors of Ladyburg Estates were Messrs Dirk Courtney and Ronald Beresford Pye, but they held only a single share each, just sufficient to qualify them to act as officers of the company.

  The other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight ordinary fully paid up five-shilling shares were held by the Ladyburg Farmers Bank. Thank you very much, said Mark, returning the file to the girl while avoiding her frank gaze. Could I see the file for Ladyburg Farmers Bank please?

  She brought it promptly.

  The one million one-pound shares of the Ladyburg Farmers Bank were owned by three men, all of them Directors of the Company.

  Dirk Courtney: Ronald Beresford Pye: Dennis Petersen: Mark frowned, the web was tangled and intricately woven, the same names again and again. He wrote the names into his notebook. My name is Marion, what's yours? Mark, Mark Anders. Mark, that's a strong romantic name. Have you read Julius Caesar? Mark Antony was such a strong romantic character. Yes, agreed Mark. He was. How much do I owe you for the search fee? , oh, I'll just forget about that. No, look don't do that, I want to pay. All right then, if you want to.