4

January 1873

Charles Rudd stepped back, wiping his oily hands on a bit of cotton waste, viewing with a bit of skepticism the monster he had just finished creating. He just hoped the damned thing would work. It had taken three weeks of hard labor, trying to follow blueprints that were wrinkled and oil-stained—not to mention several being missing—and even with the help of the Kaffirs to clean and lay out the various pieces, and to lift the heavier sections into place, it had been a job. And now it would be nothing less than a shame if, after that much time and trouble, the ogre failed to pump. Or if the boiler didn’t develop the necessary steam because of some organic fault or, of course, if he had assembled it incorrectly. Rudd was aware of his limitations as a mechanic, but he also knew that in comparison with his partner, Cecil Rhodes, he was a bleeding genius. Still, one had to recognize that the machine was secondhand, and while that meant that the price had been right and the machine had been available in Cape Town instead of waiting a year for manufacture and delivery from England, there were still a lot of things that could go wrong with a used machine. Especially with a machine that hadn’t been designed as a pump in the first place, but as a compressor. Oh, of course the principle was the same, pistons working against pressure, and of course he was fairly sure the changes he had made and the necessary parts he had fabricated for the changeover would do their job, still, one never knew until one tried. Rudd mentally crossed his fingers, checked to make sure the native hadn’t forgotten his instructions to fill the brute’s belly with sufficient water, and swung open the door to the boiler’s firebox. He pointed to the stack of firewood, pointed to a Kaffir, and then said in his best Afrikaans, “Hout! Brand!”

The Kaffir dutifully piled wood into the box. When the box was filled to his satisfaction, Rudd gave it a brief bath of kerosene, stepped back, and tossed in a lighted taper. There was a whoosh and the wood caught fire. “Meer hout,” he commanded, and moved back to sit on one of the packing crates beside Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes looked at him.

“Will it work?”

“We’ll know when we get up steam. But it should, I think,” Rudd said with more optimism in his tone than he was feeling. He sat back and lit a cheroot, watching the black toss in the hard-to-come-by logs. He took the cigar from his mouth and turned to Rhodes. “We’re going to have to bring in coal if we’re not going to go bankrupt in this venture. Wood costs a bloody fortune—”

“We’ll bring in coal, and we won’t go bankrupt in any event,” Rhodes said, and smiled. “This little machine is going to make us a lot of money. And with the money—” He shrugged.

“We’re not running yet, but you’re already spending the money,” Rudd said cheerfully. “With the money, what?”

“With the money, more claims,” Rhodes said evenly. “In De Beers. And with more claims, more diamonds. And then, of course—more money.”

Rudd considered him with a grin. “And then?”

“More claims, more diamonds, still more money. Endlessly. Until we have control of all the diamonds in all the mines—”

“—in all the world,” Rudd finished for him cheerfully. “And then?”

Rhodes frowned at his partner. “I’m quite serious.”

Rudd considered him for several seconds, his smile fading. “I’m quite sure you are,” he said quietly.

“If your machine works …”

Now it’s my machine, Rudd thought, a trifle resentfully. Then his good nature prevailed as it usually did. “If it works,”he agreed, still sounding cheerful. There was no point in sounding anything but cheerful; there was little to do about it at this stage in any case, except try the machine out and hope for the best. And there was obviously no purpose in discussing Cecil Rhodes’ dream of controlling all the diamonds in all the mines, because when Cecil John Rhodes was in one of his moods it was better to simply agree with him. Besides, it would be nice to be half partner in all the diamonds of Kimberley, insane as the idea was. If it had to be a choice between rich and poor, Rudd was willing to opt for rich. It was what had brought him to the fields in the first place. His eye kept moving between the roaring flame in the firebox and the steam gauge above the boiler. “We’re getting there. Another half hour and we should have enough pressure to try the pump.”

Rhodes said nothing. The two sat in silence watching the machine voraciously devour the expensive wood, Rhodes with no expression at all on his thin, serious face, Rudd nervously gnawing a corner of his bushy blond mustache. At last Rudd grunted; the gauge above the boiler finally showed sufficient pressure to activate the pump. He came to his feet, pleased and slightly surprised that the ancient boiler hadn’t exploded. He closed the firebox, motioning the black laborer away, and then closed his eyes a moment, muttering a little prayer more to himself than to anyone else, since Charley Rudd was in the nature of a nonbeliever. This done, he crossed his fingers in propitiation of any pagan gods possibly about, and pulled the lever directing the steam from the pressure chamber to the pump.

For a moment he thought he must have left a valve closed, or piped the monster incorrectly, since nothing happened; then at last the pistons accepted the sad fact that they were going to have to go to work again after all the years of inactivity, and slowly, reluctantly, began to move. Rudd felt a stirring of excitement, a pride of workmanship. The ridiculous abortion was actually going to work! He put his fingers lightly on the piston packing he had had to fabricate, searching for leaks, but there didn’t seem to be any. To his amazement, everything seemed to be operating normally and properly. The pistons slowly increased in speed until they were moving at their preordained velocity. The long rubber hose that had been run into a barrel of water on the vacuum side of the pump began to heave and twist; the corresponding hose on the pressure side began to jet water in uncontrolled spurts. It lifted itself from the empty barrel where it had been placed, and sprayed the entire assembly area.

Rudd laughed happily as a jet caught him squarely in the face; he ran forward, pushing the lever to cut off the steam. The two hoses obediently slowed their heaving, the pistons slowed down and then stopped. The entire machine stood silent, awaiting further instructions. Rudd wiped his dripping face and grinned at Rhodes.

“There you are, Johnny—” Rudd hated the name Cecil and made no bones about it; he was the only one who ever called Rhodes by his middle name. Everyone else, with few exceptions, referred to the humorless young man as Rhodes, or as Mr. Rhodes, despite the fact that he was only twenty years of age. “Let’s go out and celebrate.”

“Good enough.” Rhodes came off his packing crate. “When will we be able to rig it to the mine?”

“Tomorrow. I want to see to it personally.” Rudd tossed aside the waste he had used to dry his face, picked his hat from a nail on the wall. “Where do you want to go?”

Rhodes frowned. “The club, of course. Where else?”

“I don’t know.” Rudd looked a trifle embarrassed. “I feel like something a little more exciting than a few drinks and supper with the same people we see every night.”

“Such as what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. One of the bars where they have girls—” He was surprised at the look of distaste that suddenly appeared on Rhodes’ face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Only I do not frequent such places!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Johnny! Don’t be such a puritan!” Rudd sighed. “Oh, all right, then. How about the Paris bar, then? No girls there, but there are a couple of fellows there who put on a pretty good show. Clowns, acrobats …”

Rhodes considered a moment and then shrugged, making, for him, a concession. “All right. For a while, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Rudd said, half under his breath. He dismissed the laborers and led the way to the street, looking the shed door after them. In many ways, Rudd thought, Cecil John Rhodes was an excellent partner: he recognized opportunities quickly, did not hesitate in making decisions, the huge majority of which were correct, and Rudd had no doubt that eventually both of them would be wealthy men. Their claims were producing very well and even with the depressed London market for the stones, they were making quite a bit of money. And their contracts for pumping the claims of the Dutoitspan mine would bring them a lot more money. But there was also no doubt in Charles Rudd’s mind that in many ways Cecil John Rhodes was as odd as a three-shilling coin, and at times could also be quite a pain in the arse.

They had marched well along the darkened road that led from Dutoitspan to the central portion of Kimberley several miles distant, when Rudd grinned again in memory of the success of his machine. “Not a bad job, if I say so myself,” he could not help but comment.

“Quite creditable,” Rhodes agreed. It was as close to a compliment as he could ever bring himself to utter.

“Particularly considering the bloody machine was never meant to be a pump in the first place.”

Rhodes looked at his companion in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“It was a compressor before,” Rudd said, explaining. “I had to fabricate a few parts to get the thing running as a pump.”

“A compressor?”

“That’s right.” Rudd laughed. “When I first saw it in that used-machinery yard in Cape Town, I almost passed it up. The bloody machine had been used for making ice before. Can you imagine?”

Rhodes stopped dead in his tracks. They were before the Paris Hotel but he made no move to lead the way in. Rudd had turned in the direction of the hotel entrance but he stopped and walked back. “What’s the matter?”

“Can you make that machine produce ice?”

“I’d have to dismantle it and put back the original pieces—”

“Which you still have?”

“Sure, someplace in one of the crates.”

Rhodes sighed. “Charles, Charles, you have no imagination!”

“What d’you mean?”

“Ice, Charles—ice! We’ll pump out Dutoitspan in no time, and then until the next rainy season, during the nine months when it’s dry as a bone here in Kimberley, and hotter than hell itself—we’ll make and sell ice!”

Rudd stared at him. “I never thought of that!”

“Thinking is my job; doing is yours.” Rhodes smiled at the thought of having the only ice machine in Kimberley during the hellish hot months. Cold drinks for the sweating diggers at a small price per bit of ice; blocks of ice to be sold to the hotels and bars; ice for the provisioners to keep their fruits and vegetables that much longer; meats that could be held for far greater periods of time without having to be dried for preservation. Possibly even a cold house… Ice!

“Come on,” Rhodes said genially. “Now let’s really celebrate. I’ll pay for the drinks.”

They walked into the hotel and stepped up to the bar. Rhodes ordered double whiskeys for the two of them and turned to look the place over. The bar was well filled with diggers drinking and waiting for the show; to one side the dining area had been transformed, with the tables pulled back in preparation for the evening’s entertainment. One person was sitting at a table at the edge of the improvised stage, his head in his arms on the table, apparently sound asleep. Rhodes turned to the bartender who was pouring their drinks.

“When does the show go on?”

“Any minute now,” the barman said. Even as he said it, Harry came staggering out of the door that led from the kitchen. He was acting the drunken clown; his pants were far too big for him and were held to gaudy suspenders with huge bows of ribbon; his shirt collar hung away from his neck by a good twelve inches and his cravat was stringlike and had one end a few inches long while the other end almost reached the ground. He was wearing a tiny derby that perched atop his head and looked ridiculous on him. As he passed the person sitting with his head on the table, a foot was suddenly thrust out and Harry took a comic fall, holding tightly to his derby so it would not leave his head. Barney, the one at the table, now apologized profusely in pantomime for having tripped his brother and tried to make restitution by helping him up. Barney’s clothes were even more ill fitting than his brother’s; on helping each other up they continued to fall, their heads and feet becoming entangled in each other’s outsized clothing, and with Harry never relinquishing his hold on his derby which he kept clamped to his head. Eventually they ended up with Barney’s head down Harry’s pants and Harry staring at the roaring audience through Barney’s legs, his derby still pressed tightly to his head, a look of wondering curiosity on his face that all this should be happening to him. And when they finally managed to untangle themselves and each tried to escape the other by crawling under tables, every time each tried to rise he kept banging his head on the table. Until at last Barney managed to get free of the table, and taking his brother by the leg he dragged him through the kitchen door and offstage.

It was a good act and well rehearsed. Rudd found himself laughing uproariously with everyone else in the bar. Rhodes was merely smiling indulgently at the antics he had just witnessed. He looked at the barman, who was wiping his eyes. “Who are they?”

“Seen it every night for three weeks straight,” said the barman, “and they still kill me!”

“Who are they?”

“Call themselves the Barnato Brothers.”

“Italian?” Rhodes frowned. “They don’t look it.”

“Naw!” The barman grinned. “Their real name is Isaacs.”

“Jews,” Rhodes said with a look of distaste.

“I guess so,” the barman said without interest, and went off to serve another customer.

“Well, how did you like it?” Rudd said.

“They’re Jews,” Rhodes said, and dismissed the act and the actors from his mind. Rudd merely stared at him, shrugged, and returned to his drink.

In the kitchen, where Harry and Barney had gone to change their clothes and receive their sandwich and a beer, Harry tilted his head in the general direction of the other room. “See the tall fellow standing at the end of the bar?”

Barney put his head around the corner of the door, taking in the scene at the bar without being noticed himself; it was a skill learned early in life in the East End and often saved a lot of trouble. “You mean the cove what looks like a horse ain’t eaten for a month? Next to the stocky bloke with the sandy mustache?”

“That’s the one,” Harry said. He folded his oversized trousers with care, from habit. Since Barney’s arrival Harry had gone back to being the toff he had been when tending bar and acting as bouncer at the King of Prussia. “That’s Cecil Rhodes, the one who brought in that steam pump your wagon carried up from Cape Town. He and the fellow with him have three or four good claims in the De Beers. Getting rich, they say.”

“Ten to one the stocky bloke does all the work,” Barney said, and went back to changing his clothes. “Old horseface don’t look like no bloody genius to me.” He suddenly grinned. “Good news. Just proves it don’t take no brains to get rich around here.”

And when they had changed clothes and had eaten and came up front to the bar, Rhodes and Rudd had gone. The barman had a small box with donations that had been collected for the two for their artistry; there were several one-pound notes as well as the usual fair amount of silver. Barney and Harry’s eyebrows went up. It was an inordinately high amount for the two to collect.

“Some digger must have found a two-hundred-carat today,” Harry said in awe.

“Or else he had too much beer for supper,” Barney said with a smile as they each accepted a whiskey from an admiring barman.

“Rhodes, probably. He can afford it,” Harry said.

Barney looked at him.

“A bob will earn you a quid that he didn’t leave so much as a tanner,” he said quietly, and asked the barman out of simple curiosity, although he was fairly sure. But the barman hadn’t noticed; he had been busy at the other end of the bar and had been as surprised as anyone to find the unusual donation in the box.

Still, Barney would have won his bet. It was Charles Rudd who had dropped the two one-pound notes in the box when Rhodes wasn’t looking. One pound had been for him and the other for his partner, and both had been in appreciation to the gods for having made the pumping machine work; as well as for keeping it working smoothly in the future. It was cheap at the price, Rudd thought, and the fact that Rhodes was unaware of the gift would probably make the gods that much more cooperative. Charles Rudd was quite perceptive, especially after two double whiskeys.

And the pennies became shillings, and the shillings became pounds, and the pounds began to multiply, until after several months in Kimberley, Barney Isaacs came back to their tent one night, and as he and Harry sat down to some supper, Barney broke the news.

“I bought a horse and cart today,” he said conversationally, quite as if he bought horses and carts almost daily.

Harry almost choked on his mealies. “You what?”

“I said, I bought a horse and cart today.”

“Why, for God’s sake?”

Barney sighed. “D’you remember when I first came to Kimberley I told you about followin’ this kopje walloper in his cart all mornin’?”

“I remember something but I don’t remember what,” Harry said shortly. He still could not imagine the faintest reason for Barney spending good money on a horse and cart. Horses ate food the same as humans, only a lot more. “So?”

“So,” Barney said equably, not at all disturbed by Harry’s attitude, “I noticed somethin’ that mornin’ that I never forgot. So when I heard the old walloper wanted to sell his horse and cart and go home, I remembered what it was I hadn’t forgot.”

“And just what did you remember you hadn’t forgot?” Harry asked sardonically.

“I remembered when I was followin’ him that mornin’, that old walloper never directed that horse. He just sat back, half asleep, and the horse made the stops. He’d pass up the yards they never stopped at, and just stop at the ones he knew the old man always went to.” Barney raised a finger for emphasis. “And just about everywhere that old horse stopped, the old man made himself a buy.”

“So what’s that got to do with you?”

“It’s got this,” Barney said intently. “I always figured when we got three hundred quid together, I was goin’ to have a try at bein’ a walloper. Now we got it and a bit more, even after buyin’ the horse, the cart, the old man’s loupe, and his scale. I even bought his belt,” Barney added. “You taught me enough about stones to get started; the rest I can learn as I go.”

Harry considered his brother in silence for several moments before he spoke. “No more culling?”

“Not for a while,” Barney said confidently. “The next cullin’ I do is goin’ to be on our own dirt. Or I’ll do the diggin’ and you can cull; it makes no difference.”

“With the three hundred pounds we have, we could hire Kaffirs and rent claims right now,” Harry pointed out. He was intrigued by Barney’s planning. He had thought they were doing fine, but it was obvious that his younger brother had far greater ambitions. He wondered for a moment where those ambitions would eventually end. “If you want the pleasure of breaking your back down in that hole, you can have it. I can work at my job mornings and sort afternoons.”

Barney shook his head. “No. Two things: first, it’s good you’re workin’ at a trader’s. I can get a reasonable price for any good stones I buy. And second, three hundred quid ain’t nowhere near enough to get us the claims I want.”

“And which claims do you want?”

Barney grinned. “I want the ones that are producin’ diamonds, and I mean diamonds!” He winked. “And I’ll know which ones those are after I been buyin’ and sellin’ for a few weeks…”

After paying for the equipment he had purchased, as well as for the horse and cart, and after arranging at the same stable for the horse’s keep, Barney’s first stop the following morning was at the sorting yard where he had first started going through already culled dirt. The bearded man, Jerry Weston, was still at the sorting table with the same red-haired partner. The two looked up as the horse came into the yard. Weston stared with surprise to see Barney at the reins.

“Hello, Barney.” Through his turn with Harry at the Paris Hotel, both brothers had become well-known by this time in the mining camp. “The old man hire you to drive for him today? Isn’t he feeling well?”

“Hello, Jerry. No, the rig is mine. I bought it off the old man yesterday. He’s off back home.” Barney grinned. “He got rich off you guys. Now it’s my turn.”

“You going to become a kopje walloper?”

“Goin’ to try, anyways,” Barney said. “You got anythin’ for me?”

Weston laughed. “Don’t waste any time, do you?”

“Don’t have time to waste. You got anythin’ to sell?”

“Well,” Weston said, quite as if he had given the matter much thought, “I’ve got a book to sell, if you’re in the market. It’s called Macbeth; wrote by a bloke named Shakespeare, to quote the seller. We’ve all read it—several times, as a matter of fact—but I understand you’ve gotten smart and rent out the books, now. Certainly you could use another volume in your library.”

“What d’you want for it?”

Weston pretended to think. His redheaded partner bit back a smile and bent back to his work, listening.

“Well,” Weston said, “let’s see. You gave the book in trade for the right to cull some dirt of ours. What you found in the dirt earned you the princely sum of sixpence, as I recall. With the way prices keep going up in this town, I’d say a pound for the book would be about right.”

“I’ll give you thruppence,” Barney said without hesitation.

Weston looked shocked. “Even less than your sixpence? Barney, Barney! If that’s the way you’re going to try and buy diamonds, nobody will sell to you.”

“Never mind how I buy diamonds,” Barney said flatly. “We’re talkin’ about somethin’ I know about—books. I’ll make that four-pence, but that’s it.” He thought a moment, frowning. “Look! How many of you guys read that book?”

“Three,” Weston said, going along with whatever Barney had in mind, just for the fun of it. “Me, Mac, and Red here.”

“And you each read it a couple of times, you said.”

“It’s the truth. I wouldn’t lie about something like that.” Red coughed and bent farther over the table. Weston bent a hurt look at his partner. Barney was going on with his analysis, paying no attention to them.

“Now, say it took you each three days to read it in your spare time. It stays light until eight, say, and nobody’s goin’ to waste kerosene readin’ after that. Besides, everybody’s too tired. So say three days. That’s eighteen days between you. If you was rentin’ the book, you’d have paid eighteen pence, only I didn’t think o’ that in time. So take off the tanner you figure I sold the book for in the first place, and by rights you should be givin’ me back the book plus a shilling.” He looked at Weston steadily. “Fourpence is generous.”

“Barney,” Weston said fervently, “you are far too much for me! Come around tomorrow and you can have your book back without payment of any kind—on either side, that is.”

“I said fourpence and fourpence it’ll be,” Barney said. “I’ll pay you when I get the book. Now, about diamonds…”

Weston looked at him seriously, his smile gone.

“Barney,” he said, “we joke about many things, or else we’d go crazy in this town. But we don’t joke about diamonds.”

“Neither do I,” Barney said evenly. “What d’you have?”

Weston looked at him a long moment, and then opened a pouch of his belt. He brought out two stones and placed them on Barney’s palm. Barney pulled his loupe from his pocket and began to examine the stones one by one. He had spent many hours with Harry over the trays in Harris’s shop, examining stones that belonged to the trader, and he had learned a great deal. The stones he was looking at were of excellent quality, each about two carats in weight, he judged, and each of a shape that would cut to at least a carat if not more. He took his scale from its box and weighed them; the total weight came to four point three one carats. He put the loupe aside and looked at Weston.

“They’re beautiful stones, Jerry,” he said sincerely. “You could sell them stones directly to any trader in town.”

Weston took a deep breath. He wrinkled his forehead and looked a bit embarrassed. He glanced over at Red, but his partner merely shrugged and went back to his work, leaving Weston to handle the situation. Weston scratched his head.

“Barney, I don’t quite know what to say.” He looked as if he were truly at a loss for words, a rare thing for Jerry Weston. “I’m used to wallopers coming in here and telling me my stones have sixteen flaws each way from center, or that they’re yellow as daisies, as if I were color-blind or just started sorting this morning. I’m used to them telling me no trader in his right mind would touch my stones with a honey-dipper stick, and only the inherent goodness of the kopje walloper’s heart permits him to take food from his children’s mouths in order to see that I don’t starve.” He sighed deeply, and shook his head. “It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes of a Piccadilly tart.”

He leaned forward earnestly.

“Now, I’m going to tell you something, Barney! I know the stones are perfect, just as I know the sun rises in the east! And I know I can sell them to any diamond dealer in town. That’s exactly what I had planned to do. That’s why they’re separated from the others.” He studied Barney’s face carefully. “Now, I have a question for you. You tell me this: what do you think you could get from a trader on the street—say a trader like Harris or Beit—for these stones?”

Harris was the dealer where Harry worked; Beit was the largest diamond buyer in Kimberley; according to rumor he was Rhodes’ partner in the dealing as Rhodes was with Rudd in the mining. Barney thought carefully, then shrugged. “I would say, at least a pound a carat; maybe more. Those stones would go for thirty, thirty-five shilling a carat in London.”

“To the penny what I figured,” Weston said quietly. “Do you want to buy them for a pound a carat?”

Barney’s eyes lit up; then his face fell. “You said you don’t joke about diamonds!”

“I don’t,” Weston said flatly. “Well?”

“Then, sure, I want to buy ’em! What else you got?”

Weston pulled out the balance of the stones culled that day, stones that would cut quite nicely to half or three quarters of a carat, or stones with tiny flaws, some with a slightly yellowish tinge, stones that would make a fine border to a necklace, or act as baguettes to an opal or tourmaline ring. Barney examined them all carefully and fully, and made as good an offer as he felt he could make. In several instances he recognized that he may have offered more than he could get for the stones when he went to sell them, but he knew that in order to get started, to take business from the established kopje wallopers, he had to make concessions; and the only concessions he could make were in price. When he was done, he put his scale back in its box, tucked the diamonds he had purchased carefully into the various pouches of his newly acquired belt, handed over the fourteen pounds and change to Jerry Weston, and climbed back into the cart. Jerry Weston reached up and shook his hand, smiling at him genially.

“You’re apt to turn this town on its ear,” he said, “paying honest prices for diamonds.”

“If I don’t go stony,” Barney said with a grin.

“Son, you won’t go stony,” Weston said with conviction. He put on his serious air. “Mister, if you’d like to wager on that, I’d be willing to give you some very interesting odds.”

Barney laughed and let the horse lead him from the yard. It occurred to him he had never even learned the horse’s name, but it didn’t seem to make any difference; there never seemed to be a need to give the horse directions. In fact, Barney was sure that at dusk, no matter where they were, the horse would automatically head for the stable.

He thought back on his dealing with Jerry Weston. He was sure the larger of the two stones alone would bring him a reasonable profit, not to mention the smaller; and the others, on balance, he was sure, would not cost him a penny if they didn’t actually bring him additional profit. And he had made a start, a purchase at his very first stop; and a purchase he was sure very few, if any, other wallopers would have been able to consummate. He leaned back, the reins loose, enjoying being carried, albeit at a snail’s pace. Now that he was a property owner of a sort—for surely a horse and cart were property—and now that he was in an established business—for surely the buying and selling of diamonds was an established business—there was no longer any good reason not to go and visit Fay Bees. He had purposely attempted not to think of her during the long months when he had been working day and night, saving his pennies, but his attempt had never really worked; Fay was seldom far from his thoughts. He realized there was still no chance at all for him with anyone that beautiful, but it would be good to see her again, just to look at her, possibly to touch her, but definitely to dream. He could recall, as if it were just that day, walking beside her on the trek, the feeling of absolute normality in having her next to him. He could picture her blond beauty, her budding but lovely figure, her neat movements. He could feel her arms about him on the bank of the river; he could still smell the freshness of her hair.

Of course, there was also the good chance that she was in love with some tall, handsome fellow in Bultfontein—if she wasn’t married by this time. He was in the midst of picturing Fay Bees—her name wouldn’t still be Bees, of course—married and bent over a scrubbing board while her handsome husband sat around doing nothing but drinking and smoking—when he became aware that the horse had stopped. A sorter was looking at him curiously; they were in another yard. The sorter was a man he didn’t recognize, but the man apparently knew him.

“Hi, Barney.” A habitué of the Paris Hotel, no doubt. “The old man hire you to drive his rig today?”

“No,” Barney said, climbing down. He was aware that he’d probably say the same bloody thing that day and many other days until he was fully established. “It’s me own rig now. Bought it off the old man just yesterday …”

Barney finished his calculations and looked across the evening fire at Harry. His expression was anything but happy. “Eight quid four and tuppence,” he said, and sighed.

Harry stared at him in surprise. “Why the God-’elp-us face? Over eight pounds clear the first day? You ought to be jumping for joy!”

Barney shook his head stubbornly. “Well, I ain’t! Oh, sure, it’s a decent day’s pull; fifty quid a week if it keeps up. Maybe even work up to a hundred a week in time. That’s no money.”

“No money! One hundred pounds a week? That’s as much as Pa makes in six months! More!”

“Pa ain’t in Kimberley,” Barney said flatly. “One hundred pounds a week and we’ll be here a year or more before we can even think of buyin’ a decent claim.” He thought a minute and then came to a conclusion. “We’ll just have to start with a cheaper claim, or maybe rent one or two, and buy better ones as time goes on.”

Harry could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You’re quitting the walloping after just one day to go into the big hole? And what are you going to do about the horse?” he added sarcastically. “Supper for the two of us for the next six weeks?”

“I’m not quittin’,” Barney said almost in disgust for having to explain. “I’m goin’ on wallopin’, but we need claims, too. That’s where the diamonds all come from, and let’s not forget that! We need some help. How old are Kate and Sarah’s boys?” He was referring to the eldest sons of his two sisters.

“Jack and Solly?” Harry had to think. “Jack has to be seventeen now, and Solly almost that old.”

“They’re old enough,” Barney said flatly. “Write them a letter; tell them to come out here. Let them borrow the fare, or let Kate’s husband take a loan on the King of Prussia. We’ll pay it back.” He looked around the tent. “And when they come we’ll have to find a better place to live; a place in town. With some room.”

“Why don’t we buy the Paris Hotel?” Harry asked sarcastically.

Barney looked at him. “Maybe we will, someday. You just write the letter.” He thought a moment. “And tell them to come up from Cape Town by coach. I want to get started as soon as they get here. We’ve been wastin’ time.”

Harry sighed. He stared into the fire a few moments and then looked up. “Barney, you’re nineteen, aren’t you?”

“Turned it last month. You know that.”

“Well,” Harry said, “you act like you just turned forty. Why don’t you slow down?”

Barney slowly reddened. “I got my reasons,” he said half defiantly. “And, by the way, you’ll have to do your old act tonight at the Paris. I’m goin’ to be busy.”

“Why? Where are you going?” A sudden wise look came to Harry’s eyes. “Ah! I begin to see a light! So the girl is in Kimberley!” He became serious, frowning across the fire at his brother. “And you haven’t seen her in all the months you’ve been here? Why?”

Barney took a deep breath. He couldn’t keep Fay a secret forever, and after all, Harry was his brother and closer to him than anyone else in the world. And he suddenly wanted to talk of Fay.

“Because,” he said quietly, staring into the fire, “I wasn’t goin’ to see her until I was properly started on somethin’. I met her on the trail; her ma was sick and died up by the Orange and we buried her there. Her name’s Fay. She had enough trouble without me botherin’ her. Also, I’d told her you’d hit it big up here and she probably knows by now that that’s a potful. People talk around here. She probably knows we’re doin’ an act at the Paris and figures we’d be starvin’ otherwise. Maybe she even knows I was cullin’ already culled dirt for a shillin’ or two.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t see her like that.”

He kept staring into the fire as he spoke, avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“Well, I’m started, now. I got a horse and a cart and they’re beginnin’ to know me at the sortin’ sheds. Now I can go see her. It won’t be like I was goin’ with me hat in me hand.” He held up a hand abruptly, almost as if to forestall Harry from speaking. “But don’t get no wrong ideas. That don’t mean nothin’. She ain’t goin’ to look twice at a short, ugly mug like me, and havin’ to wear spectacles at me age.” He tapped the pocket where he kept his newly acquired eyeglasses, needed for reading or for examining stones except when he was using his loupe. He glanced over at Harry speculatively, as if considering him in a new light. “She’d look at you twice, though—”

Harry smiled. He moved around the fire and put an arm around his brother’s shoulder.

“I don’t want your girl,” he said gently. “I’m sure she’s beautiful and wonderful and all that, but I’ve got someone waiting for me back in London, and the day I can go back with some decent money in my pocket, that’s where I’m going. And that’s the girl I’m going back to.” He squeezed Barney’s shoulder. “And don’t run yourself down. You’ve got a lot to offer to any girl.”

Barney looked at his brother and smiled ruefully. “It’s a bloody pity you ain’t Fay. Or Fay ain’t you,” he said, and climbed to his feet. “Well, I got to get goin’ down to the stable and get Rhodes.”

“Rhodes?”

“That’s what I decided to call me horse, they look so much alike,” Barney said with a grin, and with a wave of his hand started down the road.

Bultfontein had not treated Gustave Bees very well; the first claim he had rented had produced a total of exactly six carats of diamonds in the month he had held the license, and he realized he had simply rented an unproductive claim. The thing was to be more ambitious, he decided. If one wished to be successful, one had to take risks. To this end, therefore, he let it be known in the area that he was in the market for a rich, diamond-producing claim, and was willing to pay a decent price for it. He was not without offers, but drawing at last upon a canniness that normally was missing from his nature, he insisted upon examining the claims before making the deal. Most of the ones offered looked unproductive, and Gustave Bees had no intention of buying anything that even looked as if it contained no diamonds.

One day, however, he was examining a claim with the owner at his side when he saw a glint of something in the yellowish soil at his feet, and was suddenly sure he had been correct in waiting for the right claim. He bent to pick the stone from the ground and found he was holding a diamond of at least four carats! He handed it over to the claim’s owner, being an honest man, but the owner, obviously equally honest, insisted that if he bought the claim the diamond should rightfully belong to him. Impressed by this evidence of probity on the part of the other, Gustave Bees could not wait until he had convinced the other to take his oxen and wagon for the claim, and immediately began digging, sure that in a very short time he would be back in Simonstown, the owner of an inn as posh as that of the greengrocer.

When he had dug the claim for another month—with Fay helping to haul the dirt to the surface and then doing the sorting during the day, and cooking and washing clothes at night—and when the result of all this effort was another eighteen carats of stones that had been sold for a total of four pounds ten shillings, Gustave Bees began to suspect that he had been taken advantage of with a salted claim, but of course by this time his oxen and wagon were halfway to Durban. At this point, Gustave Bees decided that mining was not for him. With no other means of livelihood available to him, he had built himself a table in their tent and advertised the fact that Gustave Bees, Expert Tailoring, was available to the population of Bultfontein and surrounding areas for any of their garment needs. The table had the dual advantage of allowing him to work on pants or jackets without having the legs or sleeves drag on the dirt floor; while at night it served as his bed as Fay slept on a mat beneath it.

Actually, business was not too bad for the tailor. Cloth was available at a drapers’ shop in Kimberley House, the diggers were nowhere near as particular as the Simonstown dandies had been, nor were they averse to advancing the money for the cloth needed. Bees had brought with him his set of scissors and shears, as well as his stock of thread and sharp needles; the miners wore through their clothes at an astonishing rate, and money was free with those who had it. All in all, it made for a good enterprise, although it did require long hours, for the diggers tended to be impatient in the matter of delivery. And so Gustave Bees often worked well into the night, straining his eyes under the light of a pair of bright kerosene lanterns. And it was in this fashion that Barney Isaacs, easily directed to the Beeses’ tent, discovered the two, with Bees sewing away at one end of the table, and Fay cutting cloth at the other end of the same table.

Barney put his head through the tent flaps, wondering what his reception would be. Fay looked up from her work. To Barney’s total and devastating disappointment, there was complete nonrecognition on the girl’s face. He stepped farther into the tent, his neatly brushed derby in his hand. Bees looked up as at the entrance of a customer, but at that moment Fay gave a little cry.

“Barney!”

She started toward him, her hands out for his, and then stopped abruptly, putting her hands behind her. Between the two months of sorting dirt, and the doing of the washing, the cooking, and all the other necessary chores, her hands were reddened and chapped, and to her own astonishment she was suddenly ashamed of them. She had never thought of her hands before as anything except useful tools needed in her daily life; now they were ugly appendages that humiliated her. Barney hadn’t appeared to notice the gesture. All he noticed was that Fay at least remembered him, even if she didn’t feel like touching him, and that was enough for the moment. And at least she was still living with her father, which seemed to indicate she hadn’t gotten married as yet, and that also was enough for the moment. He advanced to face her, holding his hat tightly in both hands to give Fay an excuse not to put her own hands out again. Bees was watching curiously from his table. Barney assayed a grin; it was a sickly effort.

“Hoy, Fay. Remember me?”

“Of course I remember you.” She slipped her hands quickly beneath her apron and smiled dubiously. “How have you been keeping?”

“Oh, fine. And you?”

“Oh, we’re keeping well, thank you.”

Barney seemed to realize they weren’t alone in the tent. He looked over at Bees. “Hello, Mr. Bees.”

Bees merely stared at him a moment and then went back to his sewing. Barney turned back to Fay. They looked at each other in total silence for several long minutes. Barney wanted to say a million things: that he had never seen her more beautiful, to ask if she had any particular boy she was seeing regularly, if she had been feeling well, if he could see her again as soon as possible—but the words wouldn’t come out. He knew he looked an utter fool standing there like a clod, hanging on to his hat, tongue-tied, while she waited, with the patience of the angel she was, for him to say something, anything. But the words just wouldn’t come. Idiot! He never should have come! She must think him the biggest simpleton on earth! Suddenly, to his own astonishment and completely without thought or volition, he found he had put his hat down to one side and with an acrobatic jump had landed on the low sewing table in a cross-legged position. He grinned, a ghastly attempt, and reached for a needle and thread. He placed them to one side and picked up a roll of cloth, cut and waiting to be sewn, opened it, saw it was intended to be a pair of trousers with basting threads in place to indicate the seams and size, and nodded. He put on his new spectacles, neatly threaded the needle, and began sewing.

“Learned from the best in London,” he said as if he were talking to himself. “Me pa.”

Bees was staring at him as if he were out of his mind. He made a motion as if to take the cloth from Barney, but then he noticed that Barney was doing better than a creditable job. He obviously knew what he was doing. With a shrug as if it made little difference anyway, as if nothing made much difference anymore, Bees went back to his sewing and his constant daydreaming of his dead Emily.

Barney finished the inseam and paused to rethread the needle, proud of the job he had done, looking up. Fay had disappeared. In his concentration on the job he was doing, he hadn’t noticed her leaving the tent. Barney could have kicked himself. Probably ashamed of me for the spectacle I made of meself, Barney thought bitterly, his face getting red. I’m truly a fool, a bloody fool! What on earth made me jump on that table, showing off? I’d better get out of here while she’s gone, and leave the poor girl alone in the future. Can’t imagine what I was thinkin’ of comin’ here in the first place! Lettin’ her see me with them glims on me eyes like some old bookkeeper, and me legs crossed on the table showin’ off I can sew. Oh, I ain’t ashamed of bein’ able to sew; only thing is, chances are Fay can sew better than her old man and fifty times better than me. But I always got to show off, to brag how good I am. Tryin’ to make meself taller that way, as if I didn’t have enough brains to know that don’t work. When am I ever goin’ to grow up? No wonder she walked out. Enough to make a person give up his supper, seein’ a exhibit like that!

He put the needle back where it belonged, rolled the partially sewn trousers up again, and climbed from the table. He retrieved his hat and looked at Bees, prepared to say good night, but the man was paying no attention to anything, sewing away steadily, his lips moving as he talked to himself. Poor Fay, Barney suddenly thought with a rush of pity, tied down to a crock like that, his mind half gone with his wife’s death. Well, at least I won’t bother her no more…

He sighed at the failure of the evening, an evening he had looked forward to for so long, and stepped outside. Fay was standing there, looking at the horse and cart. Barney’s jaw tightened. She probably thinks I rented ’em for the evening, just to impress her, Barney thought, suddenly bitter. “They’re mine,” he said brusquely. “Bought ’em for me job. I’m doin’ kopje wallopin’ over at Kimberley.”

“Barney,” she softly. “Are you angry with me?”

“Angry with you?” Barney was startled. “Why should I be angry with you?”

“I don’t know. But you didn’t talk to me—”

Barney shook his head in confusion. Suddenly the truth spilled from him with the same lack of volition that had led him to jump on the sewing table without thinking.

“No,” he said half angrily, and now it was as if he were speaking to himself and for himself. He stared at the ground, avoiding looking at the girl. “I’m angry at meself. I’m angry with me fer bein’ short, shorter even than you, and fer not bein’ good-lookin’ and fer havin’ to wear eyeglasses when I’m only nineteen years old. I’m angry with me fer not takin’ the trouble to talk proper when I really can if I want to. I’m angry with me fer bein’ a fool where you’re concerned. But mainly I’m angry fer wastin’ my time and yours by bein’ in love with you.” He looked up defiantly. “But I won’t bother you none no more.”

He started to climb into the cart; her hand on his arm stopped him, turned him to face her.

“Only one thing you said there is true,” she said, sounding angry herself. “That was when you said you’re a fool! You’re a fool to think any of the things you said.” She shook her head in irritation. “As if your height makes the slightest difference! And I don’t know what you think is good-looking in a man, but I suspect our opinions on that are quite different. As for the eyeglasses, my heavens! I think they make you look—well, older and even a bit distinguished. As for your speech, that’s pure laziness and we both know it. I could have you speaking properly in no time, if you’d only let me.” She hesitated a moment. “I’ll forget what you said about being in love because I don’t think either one of us really knows what being in love is. But what I would like to know is why you think you’d be wasting your time seeing me.”

Barney’s confusion had deepened. “You put your hands behind you when I come—came in. You didn’t even want to touch me.”

Fay looked at him steadily. “Take my hands.”

She held them out. Barney frowned and took them, holding them tightly. He stared down at their clasped hands, unable to see them clearly in the darkness, not knowing the reason for the gesture, but pleased to be touching Fay. “What about them?”

“You talk about being ugly; they are ugly. I was ashamed of them. I was afraid you’d be ashamed of them, too, and I didn’t want that. I culled dirt at the mine the first two months we were here; I broke up the lumps with a pick and shovel while Pa dug; we couldn’t afford help. I make the soap I use to wash clothes and the lye burns holes in the skin. My hands are awful. I never thought about them until I saw you walk into the tent tonight. Then I didn’t want you to see them.”

“Fay—”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she said quietly. “We’ve been two miles away from each other for over six months, and you never made any attempt to look me up, to see how I was, what I was doing …” Her voice was on the verge of breaking.

“Fay, you don’t understand—”

“What don’t I understand? I thought we were friends—”

Barney took a deep breath. “My brother … Remember I told you he’d hit it rich in Kimberley? I wasn’t bragging or lying; I thought he had. Well, he hadn’t hit it big at all. In fact, he’d gone stony. And I had twenty quid to me name in me kicks—twenty pounds in my pocket, I mean, when I got here, and thin prospects. I couldn’t come to see you like that—”

“Why not?” Fay’s voice was bitter. “You couldn’t come to see a friend? I didn’t know a soul. I didn’t have a friend in the world. I still don’t. And who are we to be proud? You couldn’t come to see me because you didn’t have any money?” She looked at him steadily a moment and then looked down at the road. “My pa traded our oxen and wagon for a claim that gave less than twenty carats in a month, after digging a month on a claim he’d rented that gave even less. If the diggers didn’t advance the money for the cloth, we wouldn’t even be in tailoring.” She kicked at the dirt in the road, shook her head, and then looked up again. “Ah, what’s the use? You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Barney Isaacs.”

Barney continued to hold her hands tightly. Suddenly he bent and kissed the back of one hand and then quickly straightened up, feeling his face get red. Fay made no motion to indicate approval or rejection.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “You’re right. I didn’t understand.” There was the briefest of pauses while Barney tried to find the right words. “Can I come around Sunday? The mines are shut down. We can have a picnic. I’ll bring everything,” he added hastily.

“I go to church.”

“Can I come around after church?”

Fay suddenly made up her mind. “Come around before church,” she said. “Come early, very early. We’ll go for a ride in the country. Away from here.” She looked around as if she could see the squalor about them in the darkness. “As far away from here as possible!”

She tugged her hands free; Barney released them reluctantly. She walked to the tent and then turned, looking back at him. “Good night, Barney Isaacs,” she said without expression, and disappeared inside.

Barney slowly climbed into his cart, his mind whirling. Fay Bees didn’t dislike him; from the way she had talked she even liked him. Oh, it wasn’t anything like love, he knew that; she had certainly made that clear enough. But it was friendship, and that was something. That was a great deal, and he’d been a fool for not having come to see her months before. Fay had had a rough time of it, and he might have been able to help in some way—but the reason he hadn’t, of course, was because he had been working for her, although naturally she would never know that, nor should she. The man Fay eventually fell in love with and married, Barney knew, would be good-looking and tall and not wear spectacles, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he’d be successful; and if Fay ever needed anything, Barney intended to see that she got it, no matter how he arranged it. He considered himself very lucky that somebody hadn’t offered her help during the six months he had allowed to pass without trying to see her. He could scarcely have blamed her had she been forced to accept.

It was a thought Barney preferred not to dwell upon. It hadn’t happened so there was no need to think of it, even though the thought kept trying to interject itself in his mind. Instead, he let old Rhodes carry him back to the center of Kimberley, through the tent village of Bultfontein, along the deserted Dutoitspan Road, aware of the fragrance of the night once the odors of the tent village were behind him and the open country between Bultfontein and Kimberley proper was being traversed. He felt totally alive, aware of everything about him, as if he had wakened from a long sleep. He remembered the thrill of holding Fay’s hands—strong hands they were, and fine hands, much put upon by the demands of a father who didn’t deserve a daughter like that—and he hadn’t noticed any roughness since his own were so calloused he couldn’t have noticed if he’d wanted to. He thought of her putting her hands behind her so he couldn’t see or feel what she thought was ugliness, and he felt proud in being considered a friend to that extent. It was a warm feeling, a good feeling, but also a sad feeling, in knowing he would never possess those hands, that girl, her love …

They had their Sunday picnic on the banks of the River Vaal to the west; not the Orange River to the south with the grave of Emily Bees to cast a shadow over the carefree spirit of the day. Fay Bees never wanted to forget her mother as she remembered her in Simonstown, a beautiful, wonderful, active, spirited person. The sickly, coughing, fevered, spitting woman who finally succumbed to the pressures of the trek and died to leave her daughter all alone was certainly not her mother, nor did Fay ever want to see again the stone cairn that hid from sight that stranger.

They spoke of many things that day; their pasts, so different: a girl raised in a small town like Simonstown on the tip of South Africa; a boy brought up in the slums of London. A girl who was an only child and now an orphan; a boy from a large family, a father, a mother, a brother, and two sisters, with aunts, uncles, nephews, and cousins all over the place. They spoke of their schooling, hers a church school with rigid discipline, his the Jews’ Free School in Bell Lane in the East End, and the further education picked up in the streets. They spoke of the troubles each had gotten into as children, and Barney learned that despite the differences they had many things in common. They were, after all, still two teenagers, brought through the oddity of events to play the role of adults. And Barney did the entire final speech of Mathias from The Bells without the slightest trace of Cockney accent, while old Rhodes looked up from his grazing with eyebrows cocked to see his master posturing so oddly—and Barney, of course, did not admit that he had been practicing the speech ever since he had last seen her, and Fay clapped her hands and congratulated him, nor did she admit she still thought it very funny, even without the accent. And as they rode back to Kimberley in the afternoon, with the sun warm on their backs and their silence as intimate as their conversation had been, Barney suddenly broke that silence. “You’ll like my brother, Harry. We’ll stop by and you can meet him when we get back. He’s taller than me, and real good-looking.” It had occurred to Barney that Harry was a long way from that girl of his he had spoken of—if she really existed and Harry hadn’t invented her to make Barney feel better—and that Harry and Fay would make a great couple. If he couldn’t have her, and it was evident he never could, at least his brother was someone he knew, liked, and trusted. It was true that Harry had no great drive, no great ambitions to get ahead, but he, Barney, would be in the family and he had drive enough for both of them. And for a girl like Fay, maybe even Harry would begin to get ambitious.

Fay merely looked at him a bit oddly, but said nothing, and Barney thought he had said enough on the matter for the time being. Nature, he was sure, would take its course. It was a bittersweet feeling, but there was actually no sacrifice involved, and he was honest enough with himself to admit it. He had no chance with Fay; he had never had any chance with Fay. So it wouldn’t be as if he were giving her up; he had never had her. They continued back in the silence he had broken, each with his own thoughts, with old Rhodes plodding along undoubtedly with his own thoughts, too.

And Fay did like Harry when she met him. He was handsome, he was clever, he was funny. Barney watched the two of them in silence as they exchanged mots and Fay laughed, and he remembered how she had laughed when he had done Mathias on the trek, but it was an entirely different kind of laughter. Now she was enjoying herself, not the way she had been when he had seen her outside her tent a few nights back. And when he got back from taking a quiet Fay home and dropping a tired and hungry old Rhodes at his stable, Harry was waiting up for him.

“You were right. She’s a beautiful girl,” Harry said.

“I never told you she was beautiful.”

“She is, anyway,” Harry said, and laughed.

“Did you like her?”

“Very much,” Harry said, and looked at Barney with that wise look of his. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Barney said shortly, and went to bed, wishing somehow that he hadn’t introduced the two, although he knew this was simply stupid. A girl like Fay was not going to be without a steady beau forever, and why not Harry? But why Harry, as far as that went? It was all very confusing. Best not to think about it. Concentrate on the kopje walloping, make money, get rich, and forget about Fay. Except as a friend, because as a friend he had asked her if he could come visiting the following Wednesday, and when he saw her then he intended to ask her to go on another picnic the next Sunday. And the Sunday afterward, and the Sunday after that. He fell asleep, dreaming of all the Sundays to come, and the wonderful pain of being with Fay and knowing he could never have her …