The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  The mighty Colossus whose armor has blunted all the arrows of Cupid seems to have been wounded by that sly huntsman, and we understand that wedding bells may soon be sounding, but who the fair partner is to be we cannot at this time divulge except to say that she is a titled dignitary much accustomed to the royal circles of Berlin, Warsaw and St. Petersburg.

  Who was this cyclonic woman who had risked everything on a boat trip to South Africa in pursuit of the world’s richest bachelor? Princess Radziwill was everything she claimed to be, and one thing more. She was the daughter of one of Poland’s noblest families; her aunt had indeed been the salvation of Honoré de Balzac; she had written widely popular books; and she was divorcing her husband, a process that would require many years. But the salient fact was that she was almost penniless.

  At forty-one, her hectic behavior had caused her expulsion from the courts of Europe, and several nations had denied her reentry. A waspish gossip, she had frittered away a dazzling life until members of her two families, who did have great wealth, wished to see her no more. With her pen she might have made herself a good life with respectable income, but this talent, too, she abused, and her publishers were weary of her broken promises and unfulfilled contracts. Like her talents, her beauty had begun to fade, and she sensed that she had only a few more good years, which she must use to advantage.

  It was remarkable that at the nadir of her career she should have devised a plan so bold, with risks so tremendous, but one day as she was sitting in her mean Paris lodgings this splendid thought had come to her: Why not marry Cecil Rhodes? Unfree to marry because of her dragging divorce, without funds, with fewer good dresses than ever before in her life, she had nevertheless launched her assault. Now, at Groote Schurr, Rhodes’ fine Cape Dutch mansion that would become the equivalent of South Africa’s White House, she behaved like a first lady and made it clear that she intended assisting Mr. Rhodes in governing the nation.

  ‘I need help,’ the great man moaned one afternoon. ‘Beg Frank Saltwood to come back.’

  In the hectic days when Princess Radziwill was intent on capturing Groote Schurr, Frank was having the tenderest experience of his life. Upon disembarking from Scot and bidding Cecil Rhodes farewell for what he assumed was the last time, since he had been dismissed, he caught a cab and hurried to the Mount Nelson Hotel, where Maud Turner had come to greet him. Ascertaining from the desk clerk where her room was located, he hurried through the stately lobby, bounded up a flight of oaken stairs, and thumped loudly at her door. Quickly it was opened and quickly he was down on his knees for anyone in the hallway to see: ‘Maud, can you forgive me?’

  ‘Get up, you stupid boy.’

  ‘Then you’ll have me?’

  ‘Not if you act like this.’ And with a swift reach of her hand she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the room, then kicked the door shut with her heel. ‘I am so glad we found each other again,’ she said, and she maneuvered Frank to the bed, telling him, when the impassioned interlude was over, ‘Now, damnit, you’ve got to marry me.’

  They took the train up through the Karroo, then south to a small siding convenient to De Kraal. It consisted of an iron shed and stock ramp marked by a deeply carved sign erected by Frank’s father: HILARY. On the long journey Maud had discussed seriously the manner in which they should lead their lives: ‘Forget Mr. Rhodes completely. We’ll have no more to do with him. What kind of work can you do, Frank?’

  ‘I know the business world. Bankers, diamonds, Parliament.’

  ‘Could you be a manager of sorts?’

  ‘I think so. But where shall we establish our headquarters?’

  She had been thinking about this for over two years, and every selfish desire urged her to say Gape Town, for she considered this the fairest city she had ever seen, a place incomparably lovely, with its ocean, its mountain, its deep indented bays, its gorgeous wealth of flowers. This was a city she could love, but her business sense warned her that South African industry was bound to center in the north, near the diamonds and the gold, and it was there that a young man could make his way: ‘I think we should work in Johannesburg.’

  ‘What a grubby place. Have you ever seen it?’

  ‘Grubby now, but we must think of the future. It’s got to be Johannesburg.’

  ‘But couldn’t we …’ He hesitated, rubbed his nose, and asked tentatively, ‘Couldn’t we … maybe … maintain an office in Cape Town?’

  As if the idea had never occurred to her, she pondered it, tickled him under the chin with her fingernail, and said, ‘Frank, I think that’s a capital idea.’

  In the Cape cart sent from De Kraal to meet them at the Hilary siding they devised a rough pattern for their future: a secure farm investment in the countryside; a business office in Johannesburg to watch over banking, insurance, trading and stocks, which Boers ignored because they had little interest in intricate financial matters; a political footing in Cape Town to protect one’s holdings; and a permanent link with ‘home,’ a spot back in England crammed with memories.

  ‘We must never forget our families in Salisbury,’ Maud said.

  ‘Naturally. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I’d like to slip back home as often as I can. I do cherish my English heritage.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable.’

  The decisions reached by Maud and Frank Saltwood represented those of many Englishmen in South Africa at that time. For them, some cathedral town like Salisbury was ‘home,’ Stonehenge their playground, Oxford or Cambridge their natural inheritance. No matter how diligently Frank handled his finances in Johannesburg or his political connivings at Cape Town, he and Maud would always be drawn back to Salisbury, spiritually if not physically; and whenever an opportunity for a trip to England arose, they would be eager to renew the umbilical tie.

  The Van Doorns, on the other hand, never returned to Holland. Not one of them would have known his or her way around the canals of Amsterdam; they rarely knew who was governing the land or what political disposition it had. And if they had gone, they would not have understood either the religion or the language. Huguenot descendants were the same: none of the Du Preez family remembered the Oudezijdsvoorburgwal or its significance to their ancestors; and even less, the Frenck village of Caix where their history began; nor could they speak French. Both the Dutch Van Doorns and the Huguenot Du Preez were now Afrikaners, and proud to be so.

  The Saltwoods were Europeans; the Boers were people of Africa. The Saltwoods would always have a refuge to scurry back to if trouble erupted; the Boers would not. If a Saltwood behaved moderately well, the English queen might call him back to London for a knighthood, but if a De Groot performed heroically, no royalty in Amsterdam would know of it, much less seek to ennoble him. Prudently the Saltwoods kept one foot in Salisbury; the Van Doorns kept both feet in Africa and did not even know of any alternative home to escape to. They rose or fell, lived or died according to what happened in Africa, and between these two types of people, the Europeans and the Afrikaners, the gulf would grow wider and wider.

  * * *

  Maud paid close attention to the wild rumors coming out of Cape Town regarding Mr. Rhodes and the Polish princess, and found naughty delight in the great man’s discomfiture: ‘Gossip says he told her she was not welcome at Groote Schurr and warned her to return to Europe.’

  As the scandal worsened, Frank was forced to take notice, and he was grieved when the papers reported that the princess had forged Rhodes’ name to bank paper to the extent of £23,000. ‘Listen to this, Maud. “She seems to have copied his signature from a printed postcard sold in stationery stores.” How bloody preposterous!’

  ‘Who is this woman?’ Maud asked.

  ‘The most extraordinary liar I’ve ever met, except that everything she ever told me was true.’ He delighted her with a brief sketch of the affair, explaining how the princess had maneuvered herself onto the Scot and into Mr. Rhodes’ astonished arms. Then he became serious. ‘If she claims she has let
ters which incriminate him, I’d say she has them. If she claims the financial papers are not forgeries, but were given to her by Rhodes, I’d hesitate to call her a liar in court. This woman is …’ He fumbled for words, them came up with ‘Stupendous.’ He added that if the charge of forgery had to be ventilated in court, the entire Cape had better prepare itself for a hurricane.

  ‘Should you offer your assistance, Frank?’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To Mr. Rhodes, of course,’ she snapped.

  ‘But he fired me.’ He broke into laughter and fell into a chair, dragging his wife along with him. As she perched on his lap he said, ‘You know, of course, that he has never in his life allowed a married man to work as his private secretary. You got me discharged, and it was damned well worth it.’

  ‘But if he needs you …’

  Maud Turner was the first of the famous Saltwood women; they formed a long line of strong-willed girls who had left secure homes in rural England, bringing with them to South Africa learning, musical ability, skill in drawing and high moral conscience. They accounted for the charity wards, the little schools tucked away in valleys, the libraries, the inadequate colleges, the books of reminiscences which would mean so much to later generations. Even during her stay in Cape Town, Maud Turner had already launched the Lady Anne Barnard Bowls Club, and near De Kraal she was using her own money to restore the ruins of Golan Mission. Women like her looked at their world, rolled up their sleeves, and tried to make it better.

  Now Maud behaved with characteristic charity. Not forgetting that Mr. Rhodes had denigrated her and delayed her marriage for several years, she nevertheless told Frank, ‘If that sad, confused man needs your help, we must offer it,’ and they had already reached Grahamstown on their way to the Cape when a telegram intercepted them: NEED YOUR HELP. RHODES.

  When they entered Groote Schurr they found it occupied only by a cadre of male servants and assistants, one of whom said, ‘That woman’s chasing him all the time. He’s run away to Muizenberg.’ At that little seafront village, well to the south of Cape Town, the great man had sequestered himself in a small corrugated-roof cottage wedged against tall trees. Viewed from the outside, it seemed to contain a few meager rooms and no amenities; it was scarcely a proper setting for what was becoming a major tragedy.

  Maud expected to work in the cottage, providing what comfort she could, but as she walked up the narrow footpath two young men appeared at the door of the cottage, obviously determined to prevent her entrance: ‘No women allowed.’

  ‘But he sent a telegram for us,’ and she produced the paper.

  ‘That meant Frank, not you. Mr. Rhodes would be most distraught if you were to force your way in.’

  ‘I never force my way,’ she said quietly, but the men were adamant: ‘No women.’ So she drove back to Cape Town and her husband moved inside.

  He was shocked. Mr. Rhodes, not yet fifty, sagged in all directions. His jowls were heavy and unshaven; his mustache, never attractive, was less so when untrimmed; his reddish hair was uncombed and matted with sweat; his arms and legs lay inert; but it was his eyes that sent the most alarming signals, for they were sodden, lids drooping and pupils unfocused. He behaved like a man in his painful eighties, forlorn and distressed. The bright young men still surrounded him; they seemed to come in endless supply: ‘Yes, Mr. Rhodes. Yes, Mr. Rhodes.’ But they gave him little sustenance.

  ‘Is that you, Frank?’

  ‘It is, Mr. Rhodes. What can I do to help?’

  ‘You’ve already helped a great deal. See the Phoenician bird in the corner? He watches over me.’ It would be intolerable to tell him now that the stone masterpiece was not Phoenician.

  Rasping sounds came from the bed. It was Rhodes trying to make an important statement: ‘Frank, to protect my honor I’ve got to defend myself against that damned woman.’

  There was now no time for courtesies or blandishments: ‘Sir, I must advise you most firmly that in proper English society a gentleman never brings suit against a lady.’

  ‘I’ve never given a damn about English society. I’m not a gentleman. And that princess is certainly no lady. See the attorney-general, Frank, and urge him to file charges.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ cried one of the young gentlemen. ‘There she is again.’

  And everyone in the cottage looked down the path to the roadway, where a woman dressed in stylish black, under an umbrella, walked slowly back and forth, staring at the cottage where the man she had wanted to marry lay dying.

  ‘Drive her away!’ Rhodes cried, but the young man said that they had tried this and the police had warned them that she had a right to walk on a public thoroughfare.

  ‘But not to stare at me!’ Rhodes wailed.

  ‘She can walk and she can walk and she can look,’ one of the young fellows said. ‘All we can do is pray for rain.’

  For weeks this tragicomedy continued. Rhodes lay in the cottage planning, while his lawyer and Frank Saltwood helped the attorney-general’s office with their case against this brazen embezzler; she issued threatening releases to the newspapers and at dusk came down from Cape Town to walk back and forth, menacingly, silently before the cottage.

  One evening Maud rode out to talk with the princess as she patrolled the roadway. ‘Why do you torment him?’

  ‘Because he has tormented me. He wants to send me to jail.’

  ‘Did you forge the seven papers?’

  ‘I have been Mr. Rhodes’ staunchest supporter. He owes me enormous sums.’

  ‘Didn’t he pay your hotel bill when the Mount Nelson threatened to evict you?’ Before the princess could respond, she added, ‘And when you accepted the money, didn’t you promise that you’d leave South Africa?’

  ‘I did leave,’ she protested like an insulted innocent, ‘but I came back.’

  ‘Princess, what can you hope to achieve by this ridiculous behavior?’

  ‘Prison, I suppose. But men who ignore women, or treat them badly—they must be taught a lesson. When I’m through with Cecil Rhodes the entire world will be laughing at him.’

  ‘They’re already laughing at you. Have you seen the cartoons?’

  ‘Cartoons are for today,’ she huffed. ‘I am for history.’

  Maud achieved nothing, and when she drove off, the princess was still stalking back and forth in the shadows, casting a witchlike spell on the cottage and its inhabitants.

  Despite all that the two Saltwoods tried to do to bring sanity into this mad affair, the criminal trial moved forward, complicated by civil trials on lesser matters, and the day came when the two protagonists faced each other before a judge sitting with his clerks at Groote Schurr, since Rhodes was too ill to appear in a regular Cape Town court. They met in bitterness, they testified in bitterness, with Rhodes stating categorically that he had never signed any papers on behalf of the princess, and that if she had peddled such promissory notes to the bankers and money lenders of Cape Town, she had done so as a forger.

  His testimony, ungracious and unforgiving, condemned the woman to imprisonment; her testimony, malicious and biting, condemned him as a fool. Worse, it condemned him to death.

  After appearing before the judge, he retreated to the miserable cottage, where Frank ordered a hole knocked in the bedroom wall so that Rhodes could catch the air for which he gasped continuously. If he lay down, he could not breathe; if he sat up, he could not rest. Still the princess marched back and forth, keeping her death watch; knowing that she could not escape incarceration, she showed no mercy. She would haunt this ungracious, unforgiving man to his death.

  ‘Please go away,’ Frank pleaded with her one night.

  ‘This is my only freedom.’

  ‘Have you any money left? Any at all?’

  ‘I’m a pauper. I haven’t enough to eat. I shall welcome the security of prison, for all my friends have abandoned me, a princess of the Russian court.’ She pronounced the word Rrrosshian.

  He gave her two pounds and told her t
o go to the Muizenberg Pavilion and eat, but she continued her vigil.

  The breath of air Rhodes sought in that dreadfully hot March never reached him, and when he felt that death would overtake him before the criminal trial reached a conclusion, he dismissed her from his mind completely. Asking for his beloved atlas, he talked with Frank about those portions of his plans still to be realized: ‘You must make the map red. Look how much we’ve done so far.’

  When his hand fell upon Rhodesia, he looked up almost pitifully and asked, ‘They never change the name of a country, do they?’

  ‘No,’ Frank said. ‘That will always be Rhodesia. Your monument.’

  But then Rhodes’ eyes could not avoid the areas which represented his gnawing defeats: South-West Africa had fallen to the Germans; Moçambique still rested in Portuguese hands; the damned Belgians had proved their hearts were made of concrete. But worst of all, while Rhodes was suffering torment from the princess, a far greater agony had raged around him, for Boer and Englishman had finally come to fratricidal blows on the South African veld. His unwavering goal, the union of those two groups, seemed more impossible than ever, but his final words to Frank addressed that problem: ‘Dear boy, when this war is over, spend your life trying to unite Boer and Englishman.’

  When Rhodes died, Frank was in Cape Town giving a deposition in the trial, and when he heard of the death he felt an overwhelming sense of failure: he had tried to protect this great man from his blunders and from this fiasco with the princess, but he had accomplished little. He was told that Rhodes had died just at sunset on 26 March 1902, forty-nine years old, consumed by the volcanic fires that had driven him. As he died he uttered his own sardonic epitaph: ‘So little done, so much to do.’

  When the Princess Catherine Rzewuska Radziwill heard of Rhodes’ death she was only forty-four, disgraced, penniless, and facing a two-year sentence in one of Cape Town’s worst prisons. She said of Rhodes: ‘I wanted only to help this lonely, miserable man. Had he attended to me, he might have been saved.’

  In prison, her first demand was for a book of rules, which she mastered with such diligence that she became a notorious ‘jailhouse lawyer,’ arguing for the rights of all prisoners. Long before her sentence was completed, the warden petitioned the court that she be set free: ‘Whenever I see her coming at me with that book of rules, I am threatened with twitches.’