Grimston Way, England
Rookswood Estate
Autumn
The rest of their honeymoon was spent in Paris, and Evy was discovering that marriage to Rogan was anything but dull. She thought she had known him, but marital intimacy opened doors to many surprises, some of which showed a romantic but rather mischievous disposition on his part—like awakening her at the light of dawn by tickling the bottoms of her feet! When she threatened to get even, he stated that he had nothing to fear, since he was confident she was incapable of awakening before him. She got her revenge, though. One evening at Rookswood she planned a surprise; she asked the servant boy to arise early next morning to collect a bucket of ice from one of the shallower ponds and had one of the maids quietly smuggle it up to the bedroom. Evy had gleefully shocked Rogan awake, dumping the ice over his bare chest before he could stop her. Oh! What fun to get the best of him!
Though Rogan occasionally eluded her understanding, most of the time he behaved just as she had dreamed he would: he was a sympathetic and protective husband—sometimes so tender she likened him to the groom of Song of Solomon. He accepted her weaknesses and idiosyncrasies with amazing liberality, and, of course, was the exciting lover she had anticipated.
A month after their marriage, they returned home to Rookswood. The weeks raced by. The joys of fall were yet riding the tame winds, rustling the green leaves of elm and sycamore trees in Grimston Woods, blowing through Evy’s heart as well. By autumn the difficulties and surprises of newly married life visited Evy with a suddenness that left her in a quandary. She had become pregnant far sooner than she expected, bringing her smoldering coals of uncertainty back to a fiery glow. In fact, the development of her and Rogan’s baby might easily appear to fit into the schedule of Lady Patricia’s gossip. Evy was afraid, and dazed by it all.
If only Aunt Grace were alive! She and Vicar Edmund Havering had raised her at the vicarage with the same love and dedication as though she had truly been their blooded niece. When Aunt Grace was on her deathbed, Evy had told her that she was the only mother she had ever known. If only she, or even Uncle Edmund, were here now. So far she had not said a word to Rogan because of South Africa. This would give him even more reason to want her to stay behind at Rookswood while he voyaged to the Chantry gold mine on the Zambezi. She knew he was anxious to go—and without her.
On one of those afternoons after another inconclusive discussion about accompanying him on the voyage, Rogan told her he had to go to London without her.
“London? But why?” She looked at him, puzzled.
“Anthony wired me this morning. He’s asked that I pay him a visit at the diamond business in London.”
“He’s still in London? How odd. He was to sail for Capetown weeks ago, soon after the dinner ball at Brewster House.”
“Something has delayed him, obviously, darling. Don’t worry. He didn’t sound as though anything was particularly wrong. Just asked me to meet him later this evening at his office.” He came up to her, taking her by her forearms. “Look, sweet, it will be late when this meeting is over. I don’t think I’ll have time to return tonight. I’ll stay at the townhouse and return in the morning.”
Rather startled, she had no answer at first. He must have noticed. He regarded her tenderly.
“Do you mind terribly?”
She did. “You never decided to go away overnight before.”
His eyes glinted and a smile loitered. “I didn’t realize you’d miss me so much.”
Rogan gone overnight? The thought of the dark bedroom without him was suddenly unthinkable. How had she lived all those lonely nights without his arms around her? It was especially troubling that the idea did not appear to be a great concern to him. Was this a way to begin putting some distance between them so that leaving for South Africa would seem less startling?
He scanned her face, then lifted her chin. “I’ll take the first train back in the morning.”
Evy was quiet as he strode into their bedroom to pack a few things he’d need. It took her awhile to digest the news. What could have kept Anthony in London when he’d been so anxious to get back to Camilla, who was ailing?
She was standing where Rogan had left her when he came out with a small overnight bag.
“I wouldn’t have minded going with you if you’d told me in time to prepare,” she said too casually.
“You’re quite right. I failed to take into account that you might want to come with me. But this is strictly business, and all that. Probably quite boring. Must be something about the diamonds. Cutting, polishing, grading … though Anthony didn’t explain.” He set his bag down and came to her, his arm going firmly around her waist. He drew her to him. “Look, darling, we’ll go again in a few days, or whenever you like. We’ll do it properly, take in dinner and the theater. All the things you enjoy.”
She wondered uneasily if there was some reason he didn’t want her to accompany him. Why hadn’t he mentioned it in time?
He kissed her. “It’s not as though I wanted to leave you.” He watched her; she remained silent. “All right,” he said suddenly, “I’ll tell you. Anthony asked me to come alone.”
Her brows lifted. “Did he? I wonder why?”
“He didn’t say.” He enfolded her in his embrace. He started to say something and apparently changed his mind. After touching her hair softly and lingering over a kiss, he turned and was gone.
The door shut, and she was left standing there, her heart full of unresolved questions.
A moment later she walked across the carpet of muted pink roses in burgundy, past the Chippendale furniture, to a window offering a view to the front of Rookswood. She pushed aside the burgundy drapery and peered below. The wide front garden hemmed both sides of the long drive down toward the great iron gate. The gate opened to the road that wound past Grimston Woods with many paths branching off into the thick trees. The road ran past the rectory of St. Graves Parish where she’d grown up, and into the village of Grimston Way and, for Rogan, the train junction.
Puzzled and disquieted, she watched him leave. Will something come between us?
London
South African Diamond Enterprise
Lord Anthony Brewster was waiting in his office at the family diamond exporting business in London when Rogan arrived on the five o’clock train. It was customary, if not a duty, to have family “sons” work for a year at the business before going to the mine in Kimberly. Parnell had put in over a year to please Julien. Rogan, too, had worked here, but he had left before his year was finished, enraging Julien, who deemed himself the family monarch. Afterward, Julien had shown up uninvited at Rogan’s camp on the Limpopo River insisting that the British South Africa Company had rights to any gold discovered with Henry Chantry’s old map, a map willed to Rogan as a boy upon Henry’s untimely death—untimely because he’d been murdered at Rookswood.
Lord Anthony’s luggage was packed and sitting in a corner of his office. He stood from behind his large desk and nodded when he saw Rogan looking at his bags.
“Yes, my ship for Capetown leaves in the morning. My bags will be loaded aboard my cabin tonight.” He explained his delayed departure by pushing an envelope across the desk toward Rogan.
“This is why I called for you to come privately. I’m worried about recent events. This letter is from your brother.”
“Parnell?” Rogan was surprised. Somehow he had expected that troubling news would be from Sir Julien Bley, and why would Parnell send it to Anthony?
The letter had been sent from Bulawayo. As Rogan slipped it from the envelope and started reading, he realized it contained information that could be damaging to Julien. Rogan now knew why Parnell had not sent it to him. Rogan was independent enough to question Julien’s doings, and Parnell was still trying to please him, just as he had when he was working for him in Kimberly at De Beers’s mining and claims office. It disturbed Rogan that his older brother was still committed to Julien’s cause above all else, as though being hitched to Julien’s wagon would strengthen Parnell’s position in the family and also his chances of marrying Julien’s granddaughter, Darinda. Why couldn’t Parnell see the obvious? Rogan doubted if his brother would ever be permitted to marry the beautiful and independent Darinda Bley.
Rogan honed in on a section of the letter that troubled him and read it again slowly, thoughtfully.
Sir Julien helped lead Dr. Jameson’s troopers against Lobengula at Bulawayo. When Lobengula fled his kraal, Julien and I were some of the first to enter the savage’s hut. He went berserk searching for the treasure trove of diamonds that he expected to find there. The main chest was gone. But there were bags of diamonds left behind in Lobengula’s haste to flee our troopers. Yet Julien was utterly dismayed. After dumping the diamonds out onto the floor, he fell to his knees scooping them with his hands. I kept telling him to hurry. The kraal huts were bursting with fire. Julien’s face was ravaged. I feared for a time that he had mentally cracked until I understood that he had expected the Kimberly Black Diamond to be in one of those bags!
He became furious. “The induna promised me it was here. Lobengula has run off with it. But I’ll find him,” he kept saying, but I kept trying to pull him out of the tent. “Come, Uncle,” I kept telling him. “The Ndebele are coming back and will attack us.” I feared for our lives, but Julien kept searching. Finally he stood, dazed. “Lobengula has the Black Diamond with him.”
Julien urged Dr. Jameson’s troopers to track Lobengula and his indunas. Our men were closing in when Lobengula sent more diamonds to buy them off. But they pursued him to the Shangani River. A battle ensued. Our patrol was killed to the last man. Lobengula got away. He fled to the Matopos Hills. Here he took refuge in a cave and drank poison. We captured a Shona slave of one of the chief indunas. He told us that Lobengula’s most loyal induna, along with his wives, buried Lobengula in one of the secret caves, and like the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, they surrounded Lobengula with his great wealth, his assegai, and his royal cloak. There were so many diamonds sprinkled over Lobengula that the Shona now have a saying: “Lobengula glitters in his sleep. The glittering crocodile sleeps, covered over with diamonds like shiny, thick scales.”
Julien believes the Black Diamond is there …
Rogan looked up from the letter, and Anthony spoke.
“The Matopos Hills—aren’t they near Bulawayo?”
“Yes. You can look off and see them from Lobengula’s kraal.” Rogan remembered his visit there with Rhodes’s delegation when Dr. Jameson and Frank Thompson were negotiating with Lobengula for right of passage through Matabeleland to dig for gold. What Lobengula had not known was that Rhodes’s Royal Charter Company intended to begin a colony farther north in Mashonaland. Rogan, however, was not particularly sympathetic to Lobengula because the chieftain, though a cousin of the Zulus, had invaded land that was not his—the land of the Shona tribe—and enslaved them all.
“Then perhaps Julien is right,” Anthony said. “The Kimberly Black Diamond is there on the Matopos.”
The Kimberly Black Diamond. Buried along with Lobengula in his burial cave? Rogan felt the intense gaze of his father-in-law. Rogan looked up from the letter to find Anthony frowning. Just what was Anthony’s emotional involvement in finding the Black Diamond?
“This spells real trouble with the Ndebele,” Rogan said. “If Julien believes the diamond is there, he’ll attempt to send an expedition.” But could Julien locate the chieftain’s burial site when the Ndebele wished to keep it secret?
Anthony shook his head. “He’ll search, all right; you know that as well as I. My adoptive father’s been plagued by that stone since he was a young man.” He looked at Rogan sharply. “I’m not one who believes in mumbo jumbo, mind you, but there are times when I can almost think there’s a curse on the Black Diamond.”
Rogan lifted a brow. “I’ve wondered too … not about mumbo jumbo, as you aptly put it, but where it first came from. How it ever got into Julien’s possession.” Rogan had his own idea about that, but he wondered how much Anthony knew about the diamond’s mysterious history.
Anthony was thoughtful and looked troubled. “First I heard of it was when I was a boy at Brewster House. Grandfather spoke of it, of Julien and Carl van Buren forming a partnership in a diamond hole they were digging at Kimberly.”
Carl—Evy’s grandfather. He’d been killed in an explosion in that diamond hole.
“Was there a witness to Carl’s death in that mining accident?” Rogan asked tonelessly.
Anthony’s eyes shot to his. “I don’t know. Afterward, Julien says Carl lived long enough to entrust Katie to his guardianship.”
“And evidently the Black Diamond. Although Henry, when he was alive, claimed the diamond was discovered by neither Carl nor Julien.”
“Henry claimed many things,” Anthony said wearily. “Including the mystical gold deposit on his old Mashonaland map.”
Rogan didn’t want to discuss the map he’d inherited. He ignored the dismissal in Anthony’s voice. The gold he discovered on the Zambezi hadn’t developed into the boon he’d hoped for. The mine was another problem facing him. He must go there to discuss things with Derwent and Mornay, but how could he leave Evy at Rookswood?
“I once heard Henry claim the Kimberly Diamond was actually discovered by his father, your grandfather,” Anthony suggested.
Rogan had heard such rumors, but when he’d asked his father, Sir Lyle, he’d scoffed at the idea.
“My father agrees with you that Henry claimed some wild and woolly things,” Rogan admitted. “I never placed much confidence in that idea myself, but I have often wondered if Julien or Carl might not have stolen the diamond from one of the Zulu ngangas.”
“The witch doctors, eh? Interesting notion, Rogan. What makes you think so?”
“I don’t have much to go on, except Dumaka. He came to work for Julien at Cape House. I found out Dumaka is an induna. To work for Julien would be a loathsome thing. Yet he came of his own free will. Though Heyden stole the diamond from Henry that night in the stables, Heyden claims Dumaka took the diamond from him and escaped with it. Just days later the British fought the Zulu in the war. The Zulus were defeated and Cetshwayo exiled. I’ve thought Dumaka took the diamond before the British arrived and fled to Lobengula at Bulawayo.”
Anthony nodded agreement. “You may very well be right, Rogan. I remember the night the diamond was stolen from Julien. I’d just arrived with Camilla in time to hear of it. And that Katie had run away with the Zulu woman.”
“Jendaya. She had become a Christian under the Varleys at Rorke’s Drift mission. She’s Dumaka’s sister. Heyden seems to think she is still alive.”
“Yes? I wonder. Anyway, Julien and I found Henry unconscious in the stables. Julien was adamant Henry had the diamond. He demanded I search him. It was an ugly night. I wish I’d never heard of that cursed diamond.”
“This is only the beginning,” Rogan warned.
“Yes, and now Heyden van Buren. I still cannot believe he actually murdered Henry and Vicar Edmund Havering. He must be mad.”
“If he is mad, he’s mad with the cause of the Boers. He wants that diamond for one reason—to help the Boers finance the war. They need weapons, and they hope to buy them from the German Empire. Guns, ammunition, cannons, and medicine to supply the Boer army.”
“Yes, yes, so Scotland Yard tells me. Heyden was in Germany before he came to Grimston Way.”
“Negotiating for armaments?”
“With friends of Paul Kruger. The diamond would then go on the international market for the best price.”
Rogan looked thoughtfully at his brother’s letter. “I wonder where Heyden is now. And does he know what happened at Bulawayo? Does Heyden have reason to think the Black Diamond is buried with Lobengula in the Matopos?”
“Indeed. If Heyden has heard the tale as Parnell tells it, then we can be sure Julien won’t be the only one in search of Lobengula’s burial cave.”
Rogan hardened his jaw. Heyden was the other reason he must go alone to South Africa. Rogan had said little about it to Evy, but he was determined to hunt Heyden down for what he had done. And he didn’t want her there to hear the details of what he’d do to Heyden when he found him.
“Another thing,” Rogan said. “Peter will have a rampage on his doorstep at Bulawayo if the indunas find out the white men who defeated their chieftain are now poking around the Matopos to rob Lobengula’s grave.”
Anthony shook his head. “Something must be done. You’re right.”
Julien would hardly listen to Anthony’s advice, Rogan thought wryly. Julien was now chief native commissioner at Bulawayo, newly appointed by Rhodes to be in charge of the conquered Ndebele. Peter Bartley, Rogan’s brother-in-law, was Julien’s assistant commissioner, but while Cecil Rhodes remained at Capetown as prime minister, Dr. Jameson was his right-hand man.
No, Julien wouldn’t listen to any of Anthony’s warnings, but the British high commissioner at Capetown might. Commissioner Milner was a friend of Anthony’s.
“I’ll arrange to meet with him when I arrive in Capetown.”
Was Anthony willing to oppose Julien’s interest in the Matopos? Rogan was surprised. Anthony had been under Sir Julien’s thumb since a lad attending school at Eden, when, after Julien’s wife died, he singled out Anthony to become his heir, arranging with the Brewsters to adopt Anthony. However, in return for being, as it were, “knighted” by Julien, he’d had to surrender his future to Julien’s wishes in order to take over the family diamond dynasty after Julien’s death. Anthony was also to assume the position of “patriarch” in charge of family monetary allowances and future marriages. Anthony hardly appeared the patriarchal sort.
“If Uncle Julien discovers you’re out to stop him from robbing tombs, he’s sure to come at you with both barrels,” Rogan warned. “It will give Darinda opportunity as well. You’re aware she wants to assume your role as her grandfather’s heir. She’s one young woman to not underestimate.”
Anthony’s face tightened. “That’s the chance I’ll need to take with Julien. England is on the verge of war with Kruger in the Transvaal. Her Majesty can’t afford to fight on two fronts. And the last thing we need is a massacre of English settlers in Rhodesia. We cannot sit idle and allow an uprising just because of Julien’s belief that the Kimberly Black Diamond is buried with Lobengula in those sacred hills.”
This was one of the few times Rogan respected Anthony for taking a firm stand. His decision to appeal to the high commissioner appeared to be selfless. Rogan hoped it was so.
By the time Rogan left his father-in-law in his office at South African Diamond Enterprise, the fog had settled over London. He glanced at his watch and grimaced. He’d intended to try to return tonight, though he’d not promised Evy, but the last train passing through the junction at Grimston Way would depart in ten minutes.
He hailed a taxi carriage. The horse clipped away into the cool fall night. Rogan frowned. The Matopos Hills … the Black Diamond … even now Julien might be getting an expedition ready. Heyden could not be far away. If there was any chance the diamond was within his grasp, he would be near—somewhere, watching, waiting for his chance. There had been at least two deaths over that diamond, Uncle Henry and old, gentle Vicar Edmund Havering. Rogan felt grim as he thought in particular of the vicar. A godly man who had been needed by Evy and Mrs. Havering, and yet Heyden had arranged for his violent “accidental” death. And there was Evy’s fall down the attic steps as well. Heyden was fully to blame for the damage to her spine. She might have been dead right now, all because of that diamond.
He must leave soon for South Africa. He must go without Evy. Would she understand?