Arcilla walked to her vanity table and placed the paper scrap from the ashtray in Uncle Julien’s office inside her decorative letter box. After putting the box back, she closed the drawer. She left the bed chamber and went to the next little room.
Marjit, Detlev’s wife, was dozing in a chair while Baby Charles slept in his cradle. Arcilla smiled for the first time and gently rubbed her infant’s back. She made a kissing sound. “Hello, my sweetie.”
Marjit stirred awake. Seeing Arcilla, she rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter.
“Thought you’d have supper first, Mrs. Bartley.” Marjit stood and stretched like a skinny cat.
“I wasn’t hungry. You can go now, Marjit, and thank you.”
Marjit looked at her kindly. She and Detlev had a farm, but when their only child, a girl, died of what Dr. Jameson had called blackwater fever, Marjit abandoned the farm and came to Bulawayo with Detlev, intending to return to Fort Salisbury. Arcilla had begged her to stay with her for a few months and help look after the baby. Peter had then offered Detlev a job working as Captain Retford’s assistant. Arcilla and Peter offered the couple a good salary, and they’d decided to stay indefinitely. Marjit was a wholesome woman who liked her and said so.
“Sound asleep,” Marjit said of the baby. “Would you like some tea before I go find Detlev, Mrs. Bartley?”
“Yes, please do, Marjit. I’m done in. It’s been a horrible afternoon.”
“So I heard. Gruesome and positively frightening. Who could have done such a thing to his lordship? Was it the Ndebele? Just like poor Major Tom Willet?”
“Oh, Marjit, I can’t bear talking about it anymore tonight. All I want is that hot cup of tea. Just to hold Charles Rogan in my arms when he wakes is enough … Could you let that rattan shade down, please? I think I’ll just lie down awhile till Peter gets here …”
Marjit, a tall, thin woman with braided yellow hair and lashless blue eyes, looked at Arcilla concerned, and nodded.
“Yes, you do lie down, my dear. You look ill. I’ll get that tea.”
Arcilla sank into the narrow cushions and lay on her side so she could watch her baby sleeping so sweetly. She found comfort watching him. Soon, tired tears blurred her eyes. My poor, poor darling baby. How can I get you to Rookswood safely?
The cold cup of tea was sitting on the table when Arcilla sat up in the semidarkened room. How long had she napped? Baby Charles was not in his crib.
Lamplight filtered in from the main bedroom. She heard heavy footsteps moving about and knew it was Peter. She arose, smoothed her hair, straightened her skirt and blouse, and stepped through the doorway to the next room.
Peter was relaxing in shirt sleeves, collar unbuttoned, pacing leisurely with his son asleep in his arms.
Arcilla watched soberly. Peter saw her, and he paused, their eyes meeting for a long wordless moment.
He looks dreadful, she thought. He’s worried.
He went to put the baby in his crib and rejoined her a minute later, drawing the door partly closed.
He was strained, tired lines showing beneath his eyes.
“Oh, Peter.”
He held her quietly, rubbing and patting her back much the same way he did with Baby Charles.
“It’s horrible,” she cried. “Someone bashed in the back of poor Cousin Anthony’s head. They snuck up behind him and—”
“Enough, Arcilla. You’ll make yourself ill. Try not to think about it.”
“I can’t get it out of my mind.”
His mouth tightened. “There’s been more trouble since dinner. Someone played a nasty bit of goods on Julien tonight. A taste of witchcraft in his office.”
“Oh no, not again?”
“It was more serious this time.”
She suspected he left out the hideous parts in his explanation, but even so it was all quite ghastly.
“Who could it be? Who is doing this? The same person who killed Anthony?”
He held her from him, his craggy face looking a bit stern. “If we knew, we’d handle the blithering fiend at once. Arcilla, until this is solved, I don’t want you out on your own.”
“Then let’s leave Bulawayo now. We’ll go to Capetown, to Camilla. She’ll need help after what’s happened to Anthony.”
“We cannot leave now, Arcilla. You know that. I have my duties here.”
“What of your duties to me and your son? Parnell says the natives will attack all of us. Don’t you care?”
“Need you ask so cruel a question of me? You and Charles mean everything to me.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Parnell drinks too much, I’ve told you so. He’s destroying himself. If anyone should leave Bulawayo, it’s Parnell. He should forget Darinda. She’s only toying with his affections for her own ends.”
She watched him walk over to the window and stand tall and straight, hands clasped behind his back.
“Darinda again,” she scoffed. She sank into a chair, leaning her head back. Peter turned his head.
“Why do you speak of her so disparagingly? It isn’t becoming of you.”
She leaned forward. “Because you speak too well of her.”
He turned about. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s only one more matter for you to seize upon to criticize me. I would think a husband is entitled to a bit of respect from his wife.”
“I would respect you more if you stood up to Julien. Tell him you’re taking your family and returning to England where we belong.”
He snatched up his pipe and tensely filled it with tobacco. He was frowning as he struck a match and lit it. He bit the end and looked at her with narrowed eyes.
Arcilla was sorry she’d spoken hastily. She did respect him. She stood and began to walk across the room to him, hands extended, but he turned his back and looked out the window into the darkness.
Her shoulders slumped. The baby began to cry. She went to see to his care. When she returned ten minutes later, Peter was sitting in the large chair smoking his pipe, his long legs crossed at the knees. He looked at her soberly.
“Everything all right?”
She nodded and walked over to the window. The cry of some animal stabbed through the darkness. She whipped the curtains closed and turned to look down at him where he sat.
“Did Anthony mention your father this morning?”
Peter shook his head no.
She tightened her mouth and plucked at her hair. “Uncle Julien said we couldn’t leave until the Boer situation is resolved.”
Peter remained silent, puffing his pipe. She gave a short laugh. “That will be years. I told him so. Charles will be four or five and have never met his grandfather Lyle and Great-aunt Elosia.”
“You imagine the very worst, then become depressed.”
She looked over at him. “Peter?”
He looked at her more tenderly. She said, “The letter from the authorities in Capetown—what was in it?”
He lowered his pipe and curled in his brows. “Letter?”
“You know, the letter Anthony brought to Julien. Would you mind telling me what was written in it?”
“Just government business, I suppose.” His brows curled even deeper. “That Matopos map … I wonder now. Anthony mentioned no map. Seems out of character for him to have brought something he so heartily disagreed with. That expedition means nothing but trouble. I wish Julien would come to his senses about the Kimberly.”
“You don’t know what was in the letter Anthony brought him?”
“No.” He bit the stem of his pipe again.
“Weren’t you in the meeting with him and Julien this morning?” He shook his head. Arcilla noted a strange expression of wariness on his face.
“No. Just as we were entering Julien’s office, Doc Jameson called me away.”
She paused, thinking. “He’s always calling you away, like tonight. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“I doubt if the high commissioner at the Cape had much to say to Julien in that letter. A small reprimand was in order, I imagine. The lofty hinky-dinks would not want a big haroosh to rile the Ndebele over an expedition into the Matopos. Not that Julien will pay heed. Parnell’s correct on one point. Julien is obsessed over the Kimberly. I suspect that’s why Anthony came. To argue face to face in hopes of getting him to see reason.”
“Darinda would say it’s not like Anthony to argue with Uncle Julien over anything. Julien controlled him all his life.”
He waved his pipe. “Why are you asking about the commissioner’s letter?”
With all the attention on the Capetown letter, why shouldn’t she ask? She debated whether to tell him of the scrap of paper she had hidden. She had no one else to turn to except Parnell, and he was nearly as frightened over things as she. She had a choice to tell Peter or wait for Rogan. By the time her brother arrived it could be too late.
“Peter … suppose that letter wasn’t from the commissioner. I don’t think the letter talked about Matopos and the Black Diamond at all.”
His pipe became still. His alert gaze flicked over her face. He bit the stem. “Hmm. Odd you’d say that. What makes you say so?”
“Anthony came about the Transvaal. About Dr. Jameson’s plan to invade Johannesburg and aid the Uitlanders and provoke the Boers to declare war. The British government wants war.”
Peter gaped at her. He leaned forward.
“How—how did you find out!” He stopped, stood, and stared at her, his face turning slowly into a scowl. “Have you mentioned this to anyone?”
At his low, urgent voice, she turned her head to the side. “I had to. I sent a wire to Rogan.”
“Rogan! Great Scot! If you wanted to stir up the cobra’s den, then why not just sound the trumpet and send a wire to Kruger himself?”
“Yes, well, Kruger wouldn’t have come to Bulawayo, and I wanted Rogan to come. I think Rogan might have gone to London about it.”
“Rogan? Rogan? But of course he would go to Pall Mall! Do you think he wants a war? It would interfere with the Zambezi gold discovery!”
“Peter, you’re upset with me! Do you want a war?”
“Great Scot!”
“Stop saying that, darling. You’re not a bit Scottish … Look, Peter, I simply had to tell.”
“You sound like a girl in a dormitory anxious to spread gossip about her competitors. Do I want a war? Naturally not! I’m working to stop—” Peter rubbed his forehead as if to calm himself. “Do you know what you’ve done in going to Rogan?”
“But of course.” She widened her eyes. “That’s quite why I did it, darling. He must have gone to London with my information, and jolly London must have sent Anthony to warn the high commissioner at Capetown. Somehow or other a Mr. Trotter found out too, who in turn simply must have written Uncle Julien that the monkey was out of the bag, but to go ahead anyway because ‘R’ agrees. It’s got to be Rhodes, darling. Rhodes and Jameson and Julien.”
Peter groaned. He set his pipe down in the ashtray and came to her, grasping her shoulders. His worried face frightened her.
“My dear, you should never have interfered like this. This is none of your concern. Don’t you see how it can be used against you?”
“None of my concern? Peter! If Dr. Jameson’s troopers invade the Transvaal and there’s fighting …?”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do understand what war means. I’m not as silly as you and everyone else think I am.”
“So I’ve discovered.”
“In my own way I’m as clever as Darinda.”
“Quite. I don’t think you’re silly. You’re my wife. And I expect and desire you to show more discernment. I do think, however, that you are wholly gullible at times. You should never have told Rogan without coming to me first.”
“You would have stopped me,” she said naively.
“Of course!” His tone showed frustration.
“Well, then?” She blinked. “Naturally, I didn’t come to you. I wanted Rogan to know.”
He looked at her askance, then gave a short laugh. “Darling Arcilla, you cannot know all of what you’re suggesting about Rhodes. And whatever was that you said about ‘Mr. Trotter and “R” agree’? Wherever would you have heard that? At any rate, say nothing of this to anyone here at Bulawayo. Is that understood?”
“I won’t, Peter, but I think more people than Julien and Dr. Jameson know of the plans to aid the Uitlanders at Johannesburg.”
“How did you discover that?”
“I overheard a discussion about Doc Jameson’s troopers. People do have a tendency to talk rather loudly, you know, when they think it’s safe to boast.”
His hands dropped from her shoulders. He looked dismayed.
She walked quickly to her vanity drawer and opened it, taking out the charred scrap of paper. She brought it to him and explained how Julien was burning a sheet of paper when she walked into his office, surprising him.
“I was upset and didn’t knock. It was right after the hideous business with Anthony. The sheet of paper he was burning in the ashtray was a letter, I think, one of the letters Anthony brought from Capetown.”
She watched as his face grew alarmed. “Don’t worry, darling,” she whispered. She patted his arm and even managed a smile. “Julien didn’t guess I knew what he was burning. There is an advantage to being underestimated sometimes. People do things they think are safe around me, or they say things they don’t think I’m clever enough to understand.”
Peter clapped a palm against his forehead and sank into the chair. “That can be dangerous. Very dangerous …” Peter stared at the scrap of paper. After a moment he looked up at her.
She was surprised by the look of concern in his eyes.
“Does he have any reason to suspect you took this?”
She shook her head. “There was an envelope, too. Clearly marked from George Trotter, Cape Mining Fields, to Chief Native Commissioner Julien Bley. I started to remove it, then thought better of it.”
He shook his head again as though overcome. He reached for a match, struck it, and held the scrap to the fire.
“Peter!”
“Hush.” He dropped it into the ashtray and stirred it about until it was gray ash.
“But ‘R’ is Mr. Rhodes—”
“You won’t mention any of this to anyone, Arcilla. Is that clear?”
She was sobered by his deadly gravity, the tremor of his voice. “Of course not, Peter, if you say so. I said earlier I would not. But I don’t see why you’re so worried. He doesn’t know I took it.”
“My dear, you don’t understand. It’s not that you took the letter scrap.” He stood and came to her. “You are clever, but there’s more to this that you wouldn’t know. It’s the fact that he had the letter at all. Anthony never gave Julien that letter.”
She looked at him, feeling muddled. “But of course Anthony gave the letter to Uncle Julien. I just explained how Julien burned it. You saw the scrap. I told you about the envelope sitting there to the side …”
He gave her a small shake. “Listen to me. Yes, it’s the letter! But remember, Retford and I were at Government House when Anthony and Julien met at Julien’s office. And when the meeting broke up, Retford saw Anthony leaving in a hurry, clutching his briefcase, and heard Julien shouting that the letter was his. I doubt Anthony even realized at first what Trotter wrote. Cape Mining Fields is connected with Rhodes, De Beers, and the Charter Company. Anthony must have thought it was a reprimand to Julien about Matopos. He must have thought those in Capetown authority supported London in rebuking Uncle Julien and Dr. Jameson for their plans to enter the Transvaal. But at the meeting with Julien he learned otherwise. That scrap you found dealt with the plan to have Jameson’s Troopers ride into Johannesburg to aid the Uitlanders. So Capetown knows about the plan and secretly supports it. Anthony must have snatched up the letter as proof and fled the meeting with it.”
She twitched her nose. “Proof?”
“Yes, as a weapon to use against Julien and the others involved if they proceeded with the raid. And if it went badly and London demanded answers, Anthony would then have proof that people at the top were privy to the plan.”
“And what would that mean—?”
“Prison, my dear—if the incursion turned into a bloodbath. The British public’s outrage would demand it!”
Arcilla lapsed into silence. “Someone entered Anthony’s bungalow tonight and searched through everything,” she said.
“So now you do understand.” His hands tightened on her shoulders until she winced. He drew her to him, embracing her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe.
“Say nothing about this—nothing about what you know, or heard, or about finding that scrap of paper, understood?”
She gasped, trying to breathe, and nodded.
“I love you, Arcilla—”
She was confused, yet his unexpected violent emotion in telling her he loved her was also thrilling. It was so unlike Peter.
“Oh, Peter, my love! You really do love me and—and our baby.”
“You silly. Darling, of course I love you and our son.” He held her tightly again. “How could you ever question it?”
She looked at him. No … she wouldn’t say it. She wouldn’t make her desire to go home to Rookswood the proof of his devotion.
He held her. Then he kissed her with such emotion that she lost her breath. She pulled her lips away and giggled. “Why, Peter!”
He grabbed her and kissed her again. “You’ll not mention any of this to anyone.” He gave her a shake. “It’s dangerous. Promise me. Go on, promise me, Arcilla, please.”
“Oh, Peter, I promise.” She stroked his worried brow. “Don’t worry, love. They’ll find Anthony’s murderer, and then everything will be all right.” She offered what she thought was a brave smile. But Peter wasn’t smiling. He was looking off in the distance, as though considering something that seemed to upset him dreadfully. Yet, he didn’t speak his thoughts. He continued to hold her protectively.
Later that evening, when he thought she was asleep, she saw him get up quietly from bed, check the door, then the baby’s cradle close beside the bed. Then he went to his desk.
In the moonlight shining through the window, she watched him open a drawer and remove his pistol. He checked it, then brought it back to bed with him. She lay still, heart thumping. She was sure he put the pistol under his pillow.
Arcilla was afraid again. Peter knew something more. His mind was grappling with something that he hadn’t wanted to tell her.
She finally fell asleep, her fingers entwined through Peter’s. Peter actually loves me. A small smile touched her lips as the moonlight stole across the bed toward the cradle.