“You’re Salomon van der Merwe’s daughter. You’re carrying his grandchild in your belly. Get out.”
There was nowhere for Margaret to go. She loved her father, and she needed his forgiveness, but she knew he would never—could never—forgive her. He would make her life a living hell. But she had no choice. She had to go to someone.
Margaret left the hotel and walked toward her father’s store. She felt that everyone she passed was staring at her. Some of the men smiled insinuatingly, and she held her head high and walked on. When she reached the store, she hesitated, then stepped inside. The store was deserted. Her father came out from the back.
“Father…”
“You!” The contempt in his voice was a physical slap. He moved closer, and she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “I want you to get out of this town. Now. Tonight. You’re never to come near here again. Do you hear me? Never!” He pulled some bills from his pocket and threw them on the floor. “Take them and get out.”
“I’m carrying your grandchild.”
“You’re carrying the devil’s child!” He moved closer to her, and his hands were knotted into fists. “Every time people see you strutting around like a whore, they’ll think of my shame. When you’re gone, they’ll forget it.”
She looked at him for a long, lost moment, then turned and blindly stumbled out the door.
“The money, whore!” he yelled. “You forgot the money!”
There was a cheap boardinghouse at the outskirts of town, and Margaret made her way to it, her mind in a turmoil. When she reached it, she went looking for Mrs. Owens, the landlady. Mrs. Owens was a plump, pleasant-faced woman in her fifties, whose husband had brought her to Klipdrift and abandoned her. A lesser woman would have crumbled, but Mrs. Owens was a survivor. She had seen a good many people in trouble in this town, but never anyone in more trouble than the seventeen-year-old girl who stood before her now.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. I was wondering if—if perhaps you had a job for me here.”
“A job? Doing what?”
“Anything. I’m a good cook. I can wait on tables. I’ll make the beds. I—I’ll—” There was desperation in her voice. “Oh, please,” she begged. “Anything!”
Mrs. Owens looked at the trembling girl standing there in front of her, and it broke her heart. “I suppose I could use an extra hand. How soon can you start?” She could see the relief that lighted Margaret’s face.
“Now.”
“I can pay you only—” She thought of a figure and added to it. “One pound two shillings eleven pence a month, with board and lodging.”
“That will be fine,” Margaret said gratefully.
Salomon van der Merwe seldom appeared now on the streets of Klipdrift. More and more often, his customers found a Closed sign on the front door of his store at all hours of the day. After a while, they took their business elsewhere.
But Salomon van der Merwe still went to church every Sunday. He went not to pray, but to demand of God that He right this terrible iniquity that had been heaped upon the shoulders of his obedient servant. The other parishioners had always looked up to Salomon van der Merwe with the respect due a wealthy and powerful man, but now he could feel the stares and whispers behind his back. The family that occupied the pew next to him moved to another pew. He was a pariah. What broke his spirit completely was the minister’s thundering sermon artfully combining Exodus and Ezekiel and Leviticus. “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. Wherefor, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers… And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ‘Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom and the land become full of wickedness.…’”
Van der Merwe never set foot in church again after that Sunday.