The Angels Weep (53 page)

‘Mr Rhodes, why do you tell me this, why do you adopt
that tone? He is my brother, but I cannot be held
responsible—’

Mr Rhodes held up one hand to silence him. ‘Nobody has
accused you of anything yet – your eagerness to justify
yourself is unbecoming.’

Then he opened the leatherbound copy of Plutarch’s
Lives
which lay on one corner of his desk. There were
three sheets of writing-paper lying between the pages. Mr Rhodes
took out the sheets, and proffered the top one to Jordan.

‘Do you recognize this?’

Jordan felt himself blushing agonizingly. At that moment he
hated himself for ever having written this letter. He had done so
in the terrible spiritual travail following the night of
Ralph’s discoveries and brutal accusation in the private
pullman coach from Kimberley.

‘It is the copy of a private letter that I wrote to my
brother—’ Jordan could not lift his eyes to meet
those of Mr Rhodes. ‘I do not know what possessed me to
keep a copy of it.’

A paragraph caught his eye, and he could not prevent himself
re-reading his own words.

‘
There is nothing I would not do to convince you of
my continued affection, for only now, when I seem to have
forfeited it, am I truly conscious of how much your regard means
to me
.’

He held the sheet possessively. ‘This is a private and
intimate communication,’ he said in a low voice, which
shook with shame and outrage. ‘Apart from my brother, to
whom it is addressed, nobody has the right to read it.’

‘You do not deny that you are the author,
then?’

‘It would be vain of me to do so.’

‘Indeed, it would,’ Mr Rhodes agreed, and passed
him the second sheet.

Jordan read on down the page in mounting bewilderment. The
handwriting was his, but the words were not. So skilfully and
naturally did they continue from the sentiments of the first
page, however, that he found himself almost doubting his own
recall. What he was reading was his own acquiescence to pass on
to Ralph confidential and privileged information related to the
planning and timing of Jameson’s intervention in the
Transvaal. ‘
I do agree that the contemplated venture is
totally outside civilized law, and this has convinced me to give
you my assistance – this and the moral debt that I feel
that I owe to you
.’

Only then he noticed the slant and form of a letter that was
not in his hand. The entire page was a skilful forgery. He shook
his head wordlessly. He felt as though the fabric of his
existence had been ripped through and through.

‘That your conspiracy was successful, we know from the
rich fruits your brother harvested,’ said Mr Rhodes
wearily, in the voice of a man so often betrayed that this no
longer had the power to wound him. ‘I congratulate you,
Jordan.’

‘Where did this come from?’ The page shook in
Jordan’s hand. ‘Where—’ He broke off and
looked up at Arnold, standing behind his master’s shoulder.
There was no trace of that vindictive triumph remaining; Arnold
was grave and concerned – and unbearably handsome.

‘I see,’ Jordan nodded. ‘It is a forgery, of
course.’

Mr Rhodes made an impatient gesture. ‘Really Jordan. Who
would go to the trouble of forging bank statements that can
readily be verified?’

‘Not the bank statements, the letter.’

‘You agreed it was yours.’

‘Not this page, not this—’

Mr Rhodes’ expression was remote, his eyes cold and
unfeeling.

‘I will have the bookkeeper come up from the town office
to go over the household accounts with you, and to make an
inventory. You will, of course, hand over your keys to Arnold. As
soon as all that has been done, I will instruct the bookkeeper to
issue you a cheque for three months’ salary in lieu of
notice, though I am certain you will understand my reluctance to
provide you with a letter of recommendation. I would be obliged
if you could remove yourself and your belongings from these
premises before my return from Rhodesia.’

‘Mr Rhodes—’

‘There is nothing further that we have to
discuss.’

M
r Rhodes and
his entourage, Arnold amongst them, had left on the northern
express for Kimberley and the Matabeleland railhead three weeks
before. It had taken that long for Jordan to wind up the
inventories and complete the household accounts.

Mr Rhodes had not spoken to Jordan again after that final
confrontation. Arnold had relayed two brief instructions, and
Jordan had retained his dignity and resisted the temptation to
hurl bootless recriminations at his triumphant rival. He had only
seen Mr Rhodes three times since that fateful evening, twice from
his office window as he returned from those long aimless rides
through the pine forests on the lower slopes of the mountain, and
the third and final time as he climbed into the coach for the
railway station.

Now, as he had been for three long weeks, Jordan was alone in
the great deserted mansion. He had ordered the servants to leave
early, and had personally checked the kitchens and rear areas,
before locking up the doors. He moved slowly through the carpeted
passageways carrying the oil-lamp in both hands. He wore the
Chinese silk brocade dressing-gown that had been Mr Rhodes’
personal gift to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. He felt burned
out, blackened like a forest tree after the fire has passed,
leaving the hollowed-out trunk continuing to smoulder within.

He was on a pilgrimage of farewell about the great house, and
the memories that it contained. He had been present from the very
first days of the planning to renovate and redecorate the old
building. He had spent so many hours listening to Herbert Baker
and Mr Rhodes, taking notes of their conversations and
occasionally, at Mr Rhodes’ invitation, making a
suggestion.

It was Jordan who had suggested the motif for the mansion, a
stylized representation of the stone bird from the ancient ruins
of Rhodesia, the falcon of Zimbabwe. The great raptor, the
pedestal on which it perched decorated with a shark’s tooth
pattern, adorned the banisters of the main staircase. It was
worked into the polished granite of the huge bath in Mr
Rhodes’ suite, it formed a fresco around the walls of the
dining-room and four replicas of the strange bird supported the
corners of Mr Rhodes’ desk.

The bird had been a part of Jordan’s life from as far
back as his earliest memories reached. The original statue had
been taken by Zouga Ballantyne from the ancient temple, one of
seven identical statues that he had discovered there. He had only
been able to carry one of them. He had left the other birds lying
in the ancient temple enclosure, and taken the best-preserved
example.

Almost thirty years later Ralph Ballantyne had returned to
Great Zimbabwe, guided by his father’s journal and the map
he had drawn. Ralph had found the six remaining statues lying in
the temple enclosure of the ruins just as his father had left
them, but Ralph had come prepared. He had loaded the statues onto
the draught oxen he had brought with him and, despite the
attempts of the Matabele guardians to prevent him, had escaped
southwards across the Shashi river with his treasure. In Cape
Town a syndicate of businessmen headed by the multi-millionaire,
Barney Barnato, had purchased the relics from Ralph for a
substantial sum, and had presented them to the South African
Museum in Cape Town. The six statues were still on display to the
public there. Jordan had visited the premises, and spent an hour
standing transfixed before them.

However, his own personal magic was embodied in the original
statue that his father had discovered, and which throughout his
childhood had ridden as ballast over the rear wheel-truck of the
family wagon, during their wanderings and travels across the vast
African veld. Jordan had slept a thousand nights above the bird,
and somehow its spirit had pervaded his own and taken possession
of him.

When Zouga at last led the family to the Kimberley
diamond-diggings, the bird statue had been unloaded from the
wagon and placed under the camel-thorn tree which marked their
last camp. When Jordan’s mother, Aletta Ballantyne, had
fallen sick with the deadly camp fever, and finally succumbed to
the disease, the statue had come to play an even larger place in
Jordan’s life.

He had christened the bird Panes, after the goddess of the
North American Indian tribes, and later he had avidly studied the
lore of the great goddess Panes that Frazer had detailed in his
Golden Bough
, a study in magic and religion. He learned
how Panes was a beautiful woman who had been taken up into the
mountains. To the adolescent Jordan, Panes and the bird statue
became confused with the image of his dead mother. Secretly he
had developed a form of invocation to the goddess, and in the
dead of night when all the other members of his family slept, he
would creep out to make a small sacrifice of hoarded food to
Panes and worship her with his own rituals.

When Zouga, financially reduced, had been forced to sell the
bird to Mr Rhodes, the boy had been desolated – until the
opportunity to enter Mr Rhodes’ service and follow the
goddess replaced the emptiness of his existence with not one but
two deities: the goddess Panes and Mr Rhodes. Even after he was
grown to manhood in Mr Rhodes’ service, the statue
continued to bulk large in Jordan’s consciousness, though
it was only very occasionally, in times of deep turmoil of the
spirit, that he actually resorted to the childish rituals of
worship.

Now he had lost the lodestone of his life, and irresistibly he
was drawn towards the statue for the last time. Slowly he
descended the curve of the main staircase. As he passed, he
caressed the carved balustrades which were worked into faithful
copies of the ancient bird.

The lofty entrance hallway below was floored with black and
white marble slabs arranged in a chequer-board pattern. The main
doors were in massive red teak, and the fittings were of
burnished brass. The light of the lantern that Jordan carried
sent grotesquely misshapen shadows flowing across the marble or
fluttering like gigantic bats against the high carved ceiling. In
the centre of the marble floor stood a heavy table, upon which
were the silver trays for visiting-cards and mail. Between them
was a tall decoration of dried protea blooms which Jordan had
arranged with his own hands.

Jordan set the lamp of Sèvres porcelain upon the table
like a ritual lantern upon a pagan altar. He stepped back from it
and slowly raised his head. The original stone falcon of Zimbabwe
stood in its high niche, guarding the entrance to Groote Schuur.
Seeing it thus it was not possible to doubt the aura of magical
power that invested the graven image. It seemed that the prayers
and incantations of the long-dead priests of Zimbabwe still
shimmered in the air about it, that the blood of the sacrifices
steamed from the wavering shadows upon the marble floor, and that
the prophecies of the Umlimo, the Chosen One of the ancient
spirits, invested it with separate life.

Zouga Ballantyne had heard the prophecies from the
Umlimo’s lips and had faithfully recorded them in his
journal. Jordan had re-read them a hundred times and could repeat
them by rote, he had made them part of his own personal ritual
and invocation to the goddess.

‘
There shall be no peace in the kingdom of the Mambos
or the Monomatapa until they return. For the white eagle will war
with the black bull until the stone falcons return to
roost
.’

Jordan looked up at the bird’s proud, cruel head, at the
sightless eyes which stared blankly towards the north, towards
the land of the Mambos and the Monomatapa which men now called
Rhodesia, and where the white eagle and the black bull were again
locked in mortal conflict, and Jordan felt a sense of
helplessness and emptiness, as though he were caught up in the
coils of destiny and was unable to break free.

‘Have pity on me, great Panes,’ and he dropped to
his knees. ‘I cannot go. I cannot leave you or him. I have
no place to go.’

In the lamplight his face was tinged with a faint greenish
sheen, as though it had been carved from glacial ice. He lifted
the porcelain lamp from the table, and held it high above his
head with both hands.

‘Forgive me, great Panes,’ he whispered, and
hurled the lamp against the panelled woodwork of the wall.

The lobby was plunged into darkness for a moment, as the flame
of the shattered lamp fluttered to the very edge of extinction.
Then it sent a ghostly blue light skittering across the surface
of the spreading pool of oil. Suddenly the flames burned up
strongly and touched the trailing edges of the long velvet drapes
that covered the windows.

Still kneeling before the stone statue, Jordan coughed as the
first wisps of smoke enveloped him. He was mildly surprised that,
after the first burning sting of it in his lungs, there was so
very little pain. The image of the falcon high above him slowly
receded, dimmed by the tears that filled Jordan’s eyes and
by the dense swirling curtains of smoke.

The flames made a low drumming roar as they caught on the
wooden panelling and shot to the ceiling. One of the heavy drapes
burned through, and as it fell it spread open like the wings of
an immense vulture. The fiery wings of thick velvet covered
Jordan’s kneeling figure and their weight bore him face
down to the marble floor.

Already asphyxiated by the dense blue smoke, he did not even
struggle and within seconds the mound of crumpled velvet was
transformed into a funeral pyre, and the flames reached up
joyously to lick against the base of the stone falcon in its high
niche.

‘B
azo has
come down from the place of the Umlimo at last,’ Isazi said
quietly, and Ralph could not contain himself.