‘Yes. I’ve promised my father we’d be home before sunset.’

‘Soela’s decided to stay.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, a flush rising fast and hot up his neck.

‘She doesn’t want to go back.’

All the niceness melted from his eyes.

‘But she can’t just decide that. Who will care for my child? I won’t be parted from Bessie.’

Elsie looked at him.

‘She says you’ve said otherwise, that Bessie’s not yours.’

‘I was angry. I said the first thing that came into my head, to hurt her. Where’s Oom Jan? I’d like to speak to him. Is Soela in the house?’

Elsie settled the cushion more comfortably behind her back.

‘Jan’s away until tomorrow evening. Soela and Diena are lying down with the baby, this hot weather makes everyone sleepy. You can wait if you wish, but Soela won’t go with you. The matter rests with me, and I’ve told her she can stay.’

David suppressed his anger.

‘You’re encouraging her to stay away from her husband?’

‘That would be wrong. I’m encouraging her to consider herself.’

‘Herself?’

‘Her feelings. And her feelings, right now, are not good. She doesn’t have warm feelings for you. She needs time.’

‘I won’t come back again, if I leave.’

‘You’ll come back because you need a wife, and she needs a husband.’

He was confused.

Elsie continued. ‘If you’re sincere about changing yourself and …’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘… and changing towards her and the baby, I’ll talk to her.’

‘It’s too much to ask.’

‘What’s too much? You’ve been without her for one week, you can manage without her for another.’

‘I beg your pardon, but that’s for her to decide. I would like to hear from Soela herself that she wants to stay here.’

Elsie looked straight at him.

‘You’ve lost already, David, both of you have. You can’t continue the way you’ve begun. If she goes with you now, it will be only a matter of time before there’s trouble again.’

‘A week will make a difference?’

‘A month would be better, but you wouldn’t agree to that. You both need time to think. Soela might even come round on her own to thinking of returning to Kloot’s Nek, and it would be better, wouldn’t it, if she wanted to return?’

‘A man cannot be without a wife for so long.’

‘A woman cannot be with one who thinks he is God.’

He couldn’t enter the house uninvited, and couldn’t call to Soela from the stoep. If Oom Jan had been there, he might have had a chance. He forced himself to be civil for a few minutes longer, then made his farewells and left.

Elsie watched the wagon roll slowly down the hill, then called to one of the servants to check if her daughters were up. She’d already decided that Soela would go back to Kloot’s Nek. She needed a husband with that baby, and Elsie couldn’t take the chance of the new knecht losing interest in Diena. Besides, David had learnt his lesson, and one day he would inherit Kloot’s Nek.

‘David will come for you next week,’ she said when Soela came out onto the stoep.

‘He was here?’

‘Yes.’

Soela sat down next to her mother.

‘You should have called me, Ma. I wanted to tell him I’m not going back. I’ve never loved him. It’s no use.’

Elsie put down the bowl of peas.

‘Do you think I loved your father when I married him? My father arranged it. “He’ll put a roof over your head,” he said, “parents aren’t there forever.” Your father’s a hard man, not one I would have picked on my own, and I cursed my father for negotiating my future as if I were a brood mare, and my mother for allowing it. I thought there was more to being a wife, I thought I would feel things. By the time you and Diena arrived, we had amassed all this land and the responsibility it brings. You get used to things, and then almost nothing matters. You were still on the breast when my mother developed a blockage in her pipes and died. My father died eight weeks after that.’ Elsie put the bowl back on her lap. ‘I was glad then that I’d married. I would have been alone.’

‘You want me to go back to David.’

Elsie looked at her daughter.

‘If you think he will have learnt from this. It’s hard to raise a child by yourself, and besides, Diena will also be getting married.’

Soela looked down at her hands clasped in her lap.

‘Did you come to love Pa, eventually?’

‘What is love? I had you and Diena. He holds us all together. If that is love, then I have come to it.’

‘And your feelings, Ma?’

Elsie laughed softly.

‘Feelings are there for you to like yourself. Remember that. The other kind gets in your head and promises the impossible.’

Soela returned to Kloot’s Nek. David, true to his word, never once mentioned the incident. One afternoon, he came in, with three daisies in his hand, took off her kapje in front of Drieka and put the flowers in her hair. Soela was stunned. It was totally out of character, and implied feelings she hadn’t thought he possessed. Perhaps she had misjudged him after all, she thought.