The Little Karoo/Chapter 6
VI: The Pastor's Daughter
I WAS teaching school for Miss Cherry in Platkops dorp when Niccoline Johanna told me her love-story. Niccoline lived then in the old Bergh house opposite Miss Cherry's garden, and Christoffeline, her little adopted niece, lived with her. Christoffeline was one of my pupils, and it was because of this, I think, that Niccoline made me her friend. Niccoline was a very silent woman, but, like many silent women, as I came afterwards to learn, she could at times speak very freely of all that was on her mind. As we sat sewing together one afternoon, re-making a little white dress for her niece, she said to me suddenly:
"Tell me now! Whose child do they say Christoffeline is?"
"Why, Niccoline," I cried, "she is your uncle Han's child, and her mother died when she was born!"
And Niccoline, putting down her work and looking out across the garden, answered: "She is not my uncle Hans's child. My uncle Hans had no child. She is Paul Marais's child. Wait! I will now tell you!"
And here is what she told me.
When my father was the pastor of Platkops dorp, and I was still a young girl, Paul Marais came down from the Caroline district to farm with old Jan Cloete on the Ghamka river. My father, who had also come from the Caroline district, knew the parents of Paul Marais, and when he came to the dorp the young man would come to see my father at the parsonage. The first time that he came Jan Cloete brought him. Jan Cloete talked with my parents, and I remember yet how his beard waggled, and Paul Marais talked with me. He told me that day that his grandmother had been an Englishwoman. He was very proud of this and made me talk English for exercise. Every time that he came after that he spoke of his grandmother and made me talk English. He was very earnest about it. He was like that about everything that he did. It mattered terribly to Paul that his grandmother had been English, and he made it matter also to me. Yes, he was like that. He nearly always got what he wanted and made you want him to get it. My father was not like that. The only thing that my father had wanted for himself was a daughter and it was not until he had been many years in Platkops that I was born. And then my mother gave me a man's name after my father himself—Niccoline Johanna for Niklaas Jan.
My mother was a very quick-tempered woman and sometimes my father's goodness and patience would drive her nearly mad. My father was for ever giving his things away and trusting in the Lord. My mother could not so easily trust in the Lord, and sometimes she would say very bitter things to my father about his patience and his faith, and about the saints in the Bible. And she would say that she who ought to have married Peter had married Moses. My mother could never like Moses. Jacob also she hated, and I remember yet how she would make me cry when she read me the story of Esau crying for the blessing that Jacob had stolen. And yet though she was always quarrelling with my father about the saints in the Bible I know now that my mother was a good woman. It was her illness that made her so bitter and so unhappy, and so afraid for the future. We did not know that she was ill, but she knew, and the year that Paul Marais came she said many terrible things to my father and me, and not anything that we could do would please her. When Paul Marais asked me to marry him I thought at once how glad I should be to get away from my mother. Yes, I loved Paul with all my heart, and yet my love for him made me cruel towards my mother, and I thought that.
Paul's father had bought for him by now a farm in the Transvaal and we were to be married at once and go up-country. I was glad it was to be in the Transvaal. It would take my mother seven days to get to Paul's farm from Platkops dorp, and God forgive me, but when Paul asked me to marry him I thought at once of that. It was as if it must kill me if I could not be alone with Paul. Yes, love is like that—beautiful and cruel and selfish and bitter, and who can tell where the one begins and the other ends?
When it was all settled between Paul and me I went to my mother to tell her. My mother was busy that day in the little room where she kept her linen. I went to her there and closed the door and said: "Ma, I am going to marry Paul Marais. His father has bought him a farm in the Transvaal and I am going to marry him."
My mother let fall her work and looked up at me. She did not speak, but when I raised my voice and said again: "I am going to marry Paul Marais," she pushed aside her work and put her head on the table and cried like a child that is tired and can go no further. It frightened me to hear her, and because I was frightened I was even more cruel. I said to her: "Ma, cry if you like, but I am going to marry Paul Marais. His father has got him a farm in the Transvaal, and I am going to marry him."
My mother rose from her chair, and she, who had never yet pleaded with me about anything, held out her hands towards me and said:
"Niccoline, do not leave me!"
And God forgive me, but even as she spoke I drew back against the wall and cried: "But ma! I am going to marry Paul Marais!"
For a moment my mother looked at me and then, quickly, she began to undo her bodice. It had many buttons and she breathed hard, like a horse. I thought to myself, "Surely my mother is now going mad, but I shall marry Paul Marais and live with him in the Transvaal.” . . . Yes, I thought that. . . . My mother undid her slip and pulled down her chemise. And I knew then what it was that she hid there.
My mother said: "Look, Niccoline!"
But I could not look, and she said again: "Niccoline, in six months I shall be dead."
And I heard, but could not speak.
My mother said at last: "My child, when I am dead and you are with Paul Marais in the Transvaal how will it go with your pa? Your pa is a saint, but like all the saints he is also a fool. When I am dead and you are with Paul in the Transvaal how will it go with him?”
Well I knew how it would go with him! My father was but a child in the ways of the world and never would he learn to care for himself. Well I knew how it would go with him! And speaking no word to my mother I left her and went to my own room. Long, long I sat there, and though it was the night of the Bible-class I did not go. Only when the Bible-class was over I went out and met Paul in the Hoeg Straat. I said to him: "Paul, so long as my father lives I cannot marry you."
Paul looked at me and said: "My God, Niccoline!"
I said: "Paul, believe me it is for the best. Before God I have promised my mother. When my father is no longer the pastor of Platkops if you send for me I will come to you. But before God I have promised my mother."
And Paul answered: "So! One day you promise me one thing and the next day you promise your mother another thing! May God forgive you and your promises, Niccoline Johanna, but surely my grandfather was right when he chose him an Englishwoman for his wife and I will do so also."
And he left me there in the Hoeg Straat and took his horses out of the coffee-house stables and drove straight out of Platkops dorp and went to his farm in the Transvaal.
When I went back to the parsonage my mother was waiting for me. She looked at me but did not speak. I said to her: "Ma, it is all arranged between Paul and me. So long as my father is pastor of Platkops I will stay with him. Afterwards I will go to Paul."
Yes, I said that. It seemed to me right to say it. I knew that I would never now go to Paul, but my mother had not thought of what would become of me after my father died, only of what would become of him after she died. And one day she would think also of me. So I said to her: "I will go to Paul."
And my mother took me into her arms and kissed me and said many kind things about Paul. They were true, the things that she said. Yes, far into the night she talked about Paul and it was as if God had taken me up into a high mountain like Moses and were showing me the things that would never be mine.
From that night my mother was very gentle with me and with my father also, and it seemed to me that I had never known her until now. It came that she grew quickly very ill and soon all the district knew that she was dying of cancer. Many people came to us and showed us such kindness as my father had not known in all the forty years that he had been their pastor. Yes. . . . My mother suffered much pain, but the five months that it took her to die were among the happiest in her life and in my father's also.
When my mother had been very ill for about four months my father went one day to Geelboss to preach. He drove alone in his buggy. On the way home, between Geelboss and the Louwrens river, he came upon Jan Steen, with his wife and six children. Jan Steen was drunk as he always was. He was the schoolmaster at Geelboss, but drink had lost him his school and he was trekking now to the dorp with his wife and children. It was a long way that they had still to go. My father had helped Jan Steen many times before and he helped him now again. He put his wife and children in the buggy and sent them on to the dorp, and started to walk himself with Jan Steen. Jan was still very drunk and when they got to the Louwrens river he pushed my father into the stream and then he himself fell in and my father had to pull him out. My father was no longer a young strong man and from his struggle with Jan and his wetting in the stream he was already in a fever when he reached us at the parsonage. In three days my father was dead.
All Platkops came to my father's funeral, for in all the Platkops district there was no man who did not love him, and Jan Steen borrowed money and bought his wife a new black dress to wear for it. That day Jan Cloete told me that Paul Marais had married Englishwoman in the Transvaal.
My mother did not live many days after my father. She did not know that Paul was married, and one night she said to me:
"Is it not strange, Niccoline, that I who could never trust in the Lord should die now so happy? Your pa is already safe in Heaven and soon you will be with Paul in the Transvaal."
The next morning, one hour before sun-up, my mother died. Miss Cherry was sitting up with me. My mother asked for water and I ran to her with a little glass. Miss Cherry lifted her up and I held the glass to her lips. The water ran out of her mouth and down her chin and on to her breast, and I saw that my mother was dead.
After my mother died the church-council gave to me the old Bergh house where still I live. I planted me my garden there and sold the vegetables at the morning market, and I kept also a cow. I lived so ten years and had much to thank the Lord for. When I had been seven years in the Bergh house Jan Cloete asked me one day at the morning market if I knew that the wife of Paul Marais had run off with the Mooidorp post-master? I asked Jan Cloete if Paul had any children. Jan Cloete told me No. I went back to my house and thought many nights and days about Paul and his English wife. Jan Cloete never spoke to me of Paul again and there was no one else that I might ask.
It was now three years after that that there came one night a knock at the door. Delia was already in bed and I took the lamp and went myself. It was Paul Marais who stood there, white in the night like a dead man.
He said to me: "Niccoline Johanna, I have come to ask you to forgive me. My wife is dead and I have come to ask you to marry me. Will you do this, Niccoline Johanna?"
I said to him: "So surely as I live I will do it!"
And Paul said to me: "I was at a sale at my uncle's farm in the Caroline district when my wife's brother came to me and told me that my wife was dead and that surely there were things of hers that belonged now to him. I told him I would send him the things, but first I must go to Platkops, and afterwards when it was settled about the sale I would send him the things." And he said to me also:
"It will take me one month to get all settled up, Niccoline Johanna, and in one month I will come for you and we will go together to the Transvaal." And I made him a cup of coffee, and he climbed on his horse and rode away.
I cannot tell you what it was like for me after Paul rode away. I could speak to no one about him and yet it seemed to me that all the world must know that in one month he would come to make me his wife. When I went to the Bible-class I tried even to sing, I was so happy. When Magdalena Fourie looked at me with her great flat face I did not feel a fool. I stopped singing, but I thought to myself, “It is Magdalena who is the fool."
When it was now three weeks that Paul had been gone I sat one night sewing at the dress that I would wear for my wedding. It was late, and in all the dorp my house alone had a light. Presently there came into the garden a drunk man. The drunk man came on to the stoep, and I do not know how it was but I knew then that it was Paul. I ran to the door and called to him. When I got him into the room I saw that it was not drink that was wrong with him but trouble and hunger. I had seen men come to my father like that and I knew. I ran and made coffee, and gave him biltong and bread to eat. I would not let him speak till he had eaten. And then he said to me:
"Niccoline, my wife is alive." And this is what he told me. . . . Coming down from his farm he had to spend a night at the Watersand toll-house in the Philip district. It was late when he reached the toll and the toll-master was away from home. A coloured boy took his horse to the stable and Paul went straight to his room. The next morning a white woman brought him his coffee. She opened the shutters, and when she turned he saw that it was his wife.
His wife came up to the side of the bed and said:
"Paul Marais, I heard you come last night. You came in answer to prayer. For three years my life has been hell. I ask you now to save me. I don't ask you to forgive me, Paul Marais, but I ask you to save me. If you don't take me away from here I shall kill John Gordon when he comes home, and then I shall kill myself." And she left him. And Paul saw then how her brother had lied to him so that he might get hold of her things, and he remembered also that the coloured boy who took his horse to the stable had said that his master would be away still three more days.
When Paul remembered this he dressed very quietly and climbed out of the window and went to the stable and got out his horse. In five minutes he was on the road to Platkops dorp and that whole day he had no food. He was weak like a child when he came to me. It was terrible to me to see him so weak. He who had been always so sure of himself did not know now what he must do. He said to me:
"What shall I do, Niccoline Johanna?" I said to him: "Paul, can you ask me that? Go back to your wife before it is too late, or surely God will hold you to blame."
And Paul said, as he had said so many years before: "My God, Niccoline!"
For a long time I talked with Paul and at last he went away. When I could no longer hear his horse on the road I went to my own room and cried as if my heart must break. And always I said to myself: "Who was now the fool in the Bible-class, Niccoline Johanna? Was it Magdalena Fourie?" Yes . . . All that night I saw Magdalena's flat face looking at me when I tried to sing in the Bible-class.
For many days after that I thought I could not live. I could not forget how ill Paul looked, and I trembled all the time to hear that his wife had killed John Gordon. When Delia dropped her pails I thought: "They have come to tell me." For the least sound my heart would stop and I would think: "They have come to tell me." At the morning market they said to me:
"But you are ill, Niccoline Johanna! What is then wrong with you?" And I could not tell them.
At last one day there came a letter from Paul saying that he and his wife were now in the Transvaal. He was selling his farm and going to another close to where my father's youngest brother, Hans, was then ·living. His wife also wrote. Yes . . . Paul had told her all that had happened between us and she wrote to me. It was a sad letter that I got from her and yet it made me happier than I had been for many weeks.
A good while after that I heard from my uncle Hans that Paul Marais was in consumption and that his wife was expecting a child. I sent Paul a liniment for his chest, and his wife many little things that I made for her baby. His wife wrote that the child was to be called Niklaas Jan if it were a boy, and Niccoline Johanna if it were a girl. I asked them to call it, rather, Christoffeline after my mother.
It was several months after that that my uncle Hans wrote that Paul Marais had a daughter and that his wife was dead. He said also that Paul could not live the winter through, being now very far gone in consumption. They had got a nurse for the child but soon, he thought, they would need a nurse also for Paul.
When I read uncle Hans's letter I called to Delia and told her I was going to my uncle in the Transvaal. I went also to Miss Cherry and told her, and we settled it so that she should look after my cow and my garden. Before the rest of the dorp knew about it I was already on my way to the Transvaal in the Platkops post-cart. Miss Cherry said always, to the people who came for milk from my cow, that I had gone to my uncle in the Transvaal.
It was a terrible journey that I took, and when at last I got to my uncle Hans's place Paul was already there with the child Christoffeline. Uncle Hans was kind to all men, as my father had been, and we nursed Paul together. Some days he was very ill, but other days he was sure he was getting better and would give us no peace until we carried him out on the stoep. When we got him to the stoep he would cry from weakness and ask us to carry him back again to die. Six weeks we nursed him so. The last week of his life he lay with his face to the wall and would speak to no one. But the day that he died he sat up early in the morning, while it was yet dark, and spoke of his grandmother the Englishwoman. All that day he spoke of her and at sundown he died.
After Paul died I came again to Platkops dorp and the child Christoffeline came with me. In Platkops dorp there was not any one who now remembered Paul Marais. At the morning market they said to me:
"Is it true, Niccoline Johanna, that you have brought a child from your uncle Hans's place to be your adopted niece?”
I told them: "It is true."
They said to me: "May the Lord bless the child to you, Niccoline Johanna!"
And I answered: "Surely He will do so." . . .
For a little while after Niccoline Johanna ceased to speak we sat together in silence, and when at last I looked at her on her strong sallow face there was neither bitterness nor sorrow, only a quiet resignation.
"You see this dress that I am making for Christoffeline?" she said. "It is the same that I was making that night for my wedding."