# The Little Karoo/Chapter 5

​V: Anna's Marriage
ANNA was the youngest of my parents' children and she was the dearest to my mother of us all. She was fair and small, like our grandmother Fourie, and gentle in her ways, and though there was not one of us that did not love her her place was always at my mother's side. My father had no favourite among us. When I married Otto Joubert of Malgas and my father gave to me the farm of Blaukops for my portion, he did only what seemed right to him and to my brothers also. But my mother could not see this. My mother wanted me to marry, rather, rich Hans Lategan of Uitkijk, and she had had it always in her mind that Blaukops would go to my sister Anna. Because of this, and because of her love for Anna, my mother could not be just to Otto ​and me. On my wedding day it was as if I could hear her cry:
"See how it is! My daughter Griet has chosen a man to please herself, but surely my little Anna will marry to please her mother."
Yes, well I knew what was in my mother's mind when she looked at me on my wedding day. And in my heart I answered her:
"Surely I have chosen my man to please myself! Out of all the world I have chosen him! Wait now, and see if Anna will not do so also."
So it was between us then, and from that day my mother could not rest until my father bought the farm of Brandtwacht for my sister Anna. Anna's farm came next to mine, on the way to our brother Ludovic's, and my father, who was now an old man, settled it so that Otto and Ludovic should work the Brandtwacht lands between them until my sister Anna married. To please my mother, ​also, before he died, he built for Anna there a grey stone house that stood close by the road. My mother was proud of Anna's house. From the wide stone stoep she would look east and look west, look north and look south, and in all the Platkops district she would see no man who was good enough for her little Aantje.
It was six months after the house was built, and three months after my father died, that Philip Coetzee, whom Otto had known up-country, came down to the Platkops district looking for gold in the Credo mountains. Much talk about gold his coming made in the district, but always when men spoke of it Otto would say to me:
"Wait now! Surely mischief and sorrow will come of it."
He said to me also: "See how it was in the Malgas district! If Philip Coetzee went looking for gold, presently round about him there was trouble among neighbours, and ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/114 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/115 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/116 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/117 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/118 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/119 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/120 ​Page:The Little Karoo (1925).djvu/121 ​Welgevonden, and always when she came Philip Coetzee came with her. Anna took it for love of her that he kept now so close by her side, and her love for him was a fever that all the world might see. Little by little, through her love for him, Philip cut Anna off from us all. And week by week when his bonds were published he would bring some strange new thing from Platkops dorp to please her. So it was that Philip played with our sister Anna till the last of the Brandtwacht lands were bonded. And quickly, quickly then the game was ended.
It happened so that in September month our little Jacoba grew ill, and I took the child to Welgevonden and stayed with my mother there to nurse her. And while I was there Philip brought one day to Brandtwacht a strange young man who was a Jew. Philip said the Jew was his friend, and that Anna must take him over the house and show him the furniture. Anna was proud as a child to do this. She did not know it, and there was ​not one of us that knew it, but Philip was now a bankrupt and the Jew had come to make a list of all the things that must be sold to pay his debts. Yes, Anna's house and her lands, her cattle and her ostriches, all, all that was hers must now be sold to pay Philip's debts. And even to the day of the sale, which was to be at old Piet Grobelaar's store, there was not one of us that knew it.
The day of the sale, early in the morning before Anna was up, Philip sent his boys with the cattle and the ostriches to old Piet Grobelaar's. When coffee-time came he said to Anna that he had sent the boys for forage and that he must now ride after them. Philip left Anna alone in the house, and on the way to Piet Grobelaar's he met again the strange young man who was a Jew. As they stood talking together in the road brother Ludovic rode by on his horse, and the Jew, who seemed angry about something with Philip, called to Ludovic to stop. At first, because for many months now not one of my brothers had ​spoken to Philip, brother Ludovic would not stop. But afterwards, God knows how it was, he turned his horse and rode back to the Jew. And the Jew asked him if he were going to old Piet Grobelaar's for the Brandtwacht sale . . . . Yes, that was the first that we knew of the sale.
Standing there in the road, speaking no word to Philip, Ludovic asked the Jew to stop the sale until he could fetch our brothers from their farms and together they would see what could be done to save the Brandtwacht lands. The Jew promised, and Ludovic, riding so hard as he could up the valley to Thys, and on to Rijk and Andries, sent our brothers one by one to Anna's house asking for Philip and the Jew. And always Anna sent them on to old Piet Grobelaar's, where Philip had gone for forage.
Last of all, from Vergelegen, came brother Lombard whom Ludovic had sent a boy to fetch. Lombard asked Anna:
"Where is the sale?”
​Anna said to him: "But brother! What is now wrong with our family? First comes Thys and asks for Philip and rides away. And then comes Rijk and asks for Philip and rides away. And then Andries. And now you! What sale is it then that you all ride so hard to?"
Lombard said to her: "But Anna! Do you not know what Philip is doing?"
Anna said: "What is he doing? He is fetching forage from old Piet Grobelaar's store."
Lombard told her: "God forgive him, Anna, but Philip is selling this day your house and your lands, your cattle and your ostriches, and all that is yours to pay his debts."
And Lombard, who, like all my brothers, could not believe that Anna did not know about Philip and his bonds, whipped up his horse and rode away.
That day my brothers bought back the farm of Brandtwacht among them. And ​Ludovic and Otto also, who worked always together for good, bought back Anna's furniture and settled it so that Anna should have it as long as she lived. But because not one of my brothers knew that Philip had left my sister Anna, for he left her that day when he rode off with the Jew, there was not one of them that went to Brandtwacht to see her. And all that day, and all that night, Anna sat alone in the grey stone house my father had built for her.
That night, late in the night, Otto and Ludovic came to my mother and me at Welgevonden. They told us all what they had done, and while my mother lay crying quietly in her bed I said to Ludovic:
"But where, then, is our sister Anna?" Ludovic said: "Now surely she is at Brandtwacht with her husband Philip."
I said to him: "God forgive you, Ludovic, but for a good man you are also a fool. There is not one of us, neither Anna nor another, that will see young Philip Coetzee ​again until he comes to borrow money."
And I put the child in the bed with my mother, and made Otto inspan the cart and drive me through the night to my sister Anna.
When we came to the farm at sun-up there was no sound on all the place. I climbed out of the cart and ran through the house and found Anna alone in the parlour. She sat on the red plush sofa and already her cheeks were flushed with the fever that was so soon to kill her. On her lap she held the little black box that Philip had given her, but though she turned and turned the handle there came no sound from it.
I said to her: "Anna, my darling, our mother waits for you at Welgevonden and I have come to fetch you."
Anna, who was so dear to us all, looked at me with wild strange eyes that would never again see any of us clearly.
"Listen now, Griet," she said, "to the music that comes from this little black box that Philip has given me."