by Peter Rimmer
“Snap out of it, Robert. You’re hysterical. None of this is going to happen. Being a schoolmaster isn’t all that bad. And you used to love history at Oxford.”
“Well, I don’t anymore. And I’m not hysterical. There’s going to be a war. You better believe it. They might even make you come home to fight for England. Without England, Rhodesia wouldn’t be much good. You’d be swallowed up by a new Shaka. A new Mzilikazi. You would last till the ammunition ran out with no king to ride for help from England. Okay, I even know your history, whatever use it is to me. You mark my words, Harry Brigandshaw. This may be the last year of the empire. The Americans won’t do anything to help. They don’t like the empire as they were once a colony themselves. Makes them feel inferior. They’ll enjoy watching the British Empire go down the drain. And we can be high and mighty, so I don’t blame them. Unless the Royal Navy can stop them they’ll sell guns to the Kaiser… All you have to do is read history. People and nations do what is most profitable for themselves whatever they might say. And once they see a chink in the British armour they’ll all be at our throats. Ever since the Battle of Waterloo they’ve been too damn scared of us, but not anymore. And you can blame the time it took us to win the Boer War for their new smirks and confidence. Oh, what the hell. I read too much. I understand too much. Never be a historian. You can too easily see what’s coming next. Europe’s been in turmoil ever since the Romans lost their grip. And now we’re losing our grip… You mind if Cinda and I stay another week? Then we’ll be on our way. The proud St Clairs going home to face their final duty.”
“Robert, don’t be so bloody dramatic. And you can both stay as long as you like.”
After a week Harry had to smile to himself. There was not even the first sign of his friend’s departure and there probably would not be any time soon. The veneer of civilisation had returned to everyone’s composure. Europe was forgotten. Trivia was spoken. Everyone, on the surface, was happy and the only noise came from the dogs.
Sir Henry Manderville arrived back with the horse and trap from Salisbury with the mailbag and the stores that were needed on the farm. It was the job he did once a month to pay his way. Careful buying at the right price was a key ingredient for keeping the farm profitable.
Along with the bag of mail at the post office came a small, brown paper-wrapped box with his name and address written in his cousin’s handwriting. The postage stamps were American. The return address Salem, Virginia. The Canadian cousin, the heir to Sir Henry’s baronetcy, Sir Henry having no son, had given up being a lumberjack and gone down south to a warmer climate, having somehow made himself some money. George Manderville had bought himself a small farm in Virginia and had written to his cousin to give him his new address. By some miracle of the British postal system, or the more likely help of Harry’s uncle, James Brigandshaw, the current owner of Hastings Court, the letter had been redirected and had arrived at Elephant Walk just before the rains. Sir Henry surmised the Americans were more impressed with British titles than the Canadians; his second cousin did not wish to miss out in the social swirl of Virginia; maybe had his eye on some rich planter’s daughter.
For the first time in their lives they were in correspondence, and since the cousin was trying to use him, he had also thought it in order to use his cousin. His cousin had told him rather too grandly in the first letter that had sailed around the world, that he was now a tobacco planter, which had set Sir Henry Manderville to thinking.
In his botanical quests and forays he had come across a wild tobacco plant used by the Shona for generations. They dried the leaves in the sun and smoked them wrapped up in one of the leaves, apparently achieving some degree of satisfaction. So Henry had cut himself some stalks that grew down by the river and taken the green plants home where he had hung them in the sun to dry. The first few pipes had half choked him but in the end, he only smoked his own home-cured tobacco, knowing to use the middle leaves of the plant, which was when the letter from his cousin gave him the idea. All the cigarettes and most of the pipe tobacco he had smoked in his life came from America, and most of the packets claimed somewhere in the writing that the tobacco had been grown in Virginia. If wild tobacco grew, why not the good stuff the Americans exported around the world, making the farmers, he was sure, a fortune?
When he got back to his house, having given the mailbag to his daughter, Emily, he opened the brown paper parcel to find inside small bags of tiny black seed. With the bags came growing instructions. The ex-lumberjack was no longer a fool. Tucking the seeds away out of sight, Henry determined to plant them in a small seedbed at the back of his house at the beginning of spring, just before the rainy season. What he was going to do about a curing barn he would worry about when the time came. First, he would see if he could grow himself some Virginia tobacco in the wilds of Africa.
With a feeling of intense satisfaction, he poured himself a large glass of whisky and drank a toast to his new venture.
Harry rummaged through the mailbag when he came back from the lands at the end of his day’s work. He was sitting on the veranda with his first sundowner, the taste of the whisky sweet in his mouth. To Harry’s surprise, his grandfather, for a change, was already sitting drinking whisky, with a big smirk on his face. Harry rather thought his grandfather was happily drunk.
He looked at his grandfather with a question mark, received a sweet smile in return and went on rummaging in the mailbag. Most of the letters were farm business and most of those were bills. He would take them to his small office next to the packing shed in the morning. When he found Jared Westwood’s letter from England he smiled, followed by an instant picture in his mind of Jared’s sister Sara, who had still not married the man she was meant to marry last time he heard. Neither Jared nor his sister had been back to Africa for six years after their one and only venture into the wild. Jared now worked in the City and was miserable.
Robert walked across the lawn from the house that had belonged to the Oosthuizen family and closed the fly screen door behind him. Lucinda was still enjoying her evening bath.
“Help yourself,” said Harry. “Letter from Jared Wentworth. You remember him. His sister was meant to marry Mervyn Braithwaite.”
“He really did have a face like a wet codfish,” said Robert, helping himself to a whisky from the sideboard, sloshing in a shot of soda water from the syphon. “What’s Jared got to say? What’s he doing now?”
“Let me read first, Robert.”
“Evening, Sir Henry.”
Harry’s grandfather kept on grinning but said not a word. The three of them drank in silence while Harry read the letter from England.
Dear old friend,
I sometimes find it much easier to write down what I want to say rather than bring the subject up in conversation. Anyway, most people never want to hear bad news or talk about it. If you’re coming over to England as you have been saying for years in your letters I think you had better do it fast. Or as fast as it takes the horse to get to Salisbury, the train down Africa to Cape Town, and one of your family ships to England (I still have a good memory of Robert St Clair extolling the virtues of the ‘SS King Emperor’ – did you ever hear of him? – if you do, give him my best regards). Strange how you sometimes get to know people so well over a short time and never hear from them again. Which is why I so much value our correspondence.
Harry there’s going to be a terrible war in Europe any time soon. The balance of power that has kept us away from each other’s throats is crumbling. Germany is becoming far too powerful, and when a country has more military power than it needs to defend itself it becomes a predator, coveting its neighbour’s property. And there are so many alliances between so many countries that if two go to war the rest will be dragged in by treaty. Did you know we have a treaty with the Serbs, for goodness sake? Even Russia will be pulled head first into the fire.
The Americans I rather think will sit and watch and keep out of it. They don’t have any pacts with Europe. They’
ll probably wait to see who’s winning and come in at the end to share the spoils. People in the City are taking precautions, moving money to America, buying shares in American and British armament firms, trying to calculate who will win and who will lose in a great war. You have to wonder sometimes, seeing them burrowing away for their blood money. Quite disgusting. Why I will never do well as a stockbroker. I don’t have the killer instinct, though if there is going to be a war, and everyone with brains in the City is certain there will be one, I’d better find one soon or at least the instinct to survive.
Now let me tell you about Sara, which is why you must come over to England as soon as possible. Don’t you get a free ticket or something, being family? That damn Braithwaite man and his money are still breathing down her neck. Persistence can sometimes be a deadly force. If you see each other again I’m sure you’ll want to rescue her from hell.
Madge had come onto the fly screened veranda from inside the house and poured herself a gin and tonic before picking up the mailbag. She plucked the tabby cat off her chair and sat down. Outside, the dogs were still chasing each other around the flowerbeds, regularly changing who was chased and who was chasing. The sky was blood-red behind the msasa trees, the colour of the sinking sun. A pair of Egyptian geese were flying around honking at each other and Madge did not even think it was the mating season. Her grandfather was giving her a queer look. ‘Oh, well, we’ll probably all end up a bunch of drunks,’ she said to herself, taking a swig from her drink. Satisfied she had put enough gin in the tonic, she began rummaging around in the mailbag for something interesting. ‘There’s nothing else to do but drink when the sun goes down,’ she said to herself, sighing. Rationalising with herself was a trait she had learned early on in childhood. There was nothing in the mailbag for her.
The sister, Lucinda, came in smelling rather sweet.
“Help yourself,” said Harry, not looking up from his letter.
The rule of pouring each other’s drinks had been stopped a long time ago.
One of the dogs barged in through the fly screen door, which banged behind her. The succession of clangs brought in the rest of the dogs that then lay down on the mat-covered floor and slobbered.
Behind, through the window into the dining room, the houseboy was laying out the cold food. All the food platters were covered with a muslin cloth, the pile of empty plates and cutlery standing either end of the food line on the sideboard. Madge’s mother counted the plates to make sure there were enough, including her father. It seemed he was set on spending the evening with them. Looking through the drawing-room window onto the veranda she wondered what her father was up to. It was obviously quite something as the old man was almost hugging himself with glee. They would all find out soon enough. Her son had finished his letter and was staring into space and she wondered what that was all about. The girl with the two names, sometimes Lucinda, sometimes Cinda, was trying to catch Harry’s eye. The girl had groomed herself carefully. If nothing else, Emily was glad she did not have to go through all that again.
The tabby cat had got back on the chair by sitting on Madge’s lap and Madge had not noticed even though she was gently stroking the cat’s fur. She was again rummaging one-handed in the mailbag and picked out a brown envelope in which the post office sent out cables. Someone had written on the outside of the envelope in pencil.
‘This was found when we moved to our new premises. It was tucked down the back of your letterbox. The Post Office apologises,’ said the unknown hand.
“Look at this,” said Madge, her eyes widening. “It’s a cable for Jack Merryweather. Wasn’t he the bloke who came out with you on the SS King Emperor in ’07? Why would anyone want to cable him here? What’s the matter, Harry? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
“You remember Jared Wentworth, Robert,” said Harry. “I think he was here during your first visit. I must have talked about him. He also thinks there’s going to be a war.”
“What war?” said his mother, now pouring her first drink. She sipped the drink, topped it up with gin, and turned from the sideboard to her son. “What war, Harry? No one’s told me about a war.”
“Robert here, and my friend Jared in England think there’s going to be a terrible war in Europe.”
“Whatever for? We’re civilised. Civilised people don’t have wars with each other. What absolute nonsense. And Father, what have you been up to today?”
“Nothing, Em, nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Good Lord,” said Madge. “This cable was sent in 1907, six years ago. It’s from someone called Sallie Barker. Says she’s in trouble and wants Jack Merryweather to give her some help. She says something terrible has happened to her.”
3
April 1913
There had been other moments in Jack Merryweather’s life that he would have liked to wipe clean, expunge, take out of his life so they had never existed.
The same evening Madge was reading the belated cable from Sallie Barker, Jack walked into the Mansion House only half suspecting what he would find. Having come so far, he overruled his better instinct that he had known from experience was better not done. The landlord in Cape Town had started the rot.
“Had to give her back one month’s rent. Not that I mind. There was something fishy going on in that house. Soon as you left to go up north to go hunting elephant, young girls started to arrive. All pretty, they were. And they stayed. Now, my house in Strand Street don’t need no reputation. No men came, I’ll give ’er that, but all them young girls in one house? One of ’em was coloured, I can tell you that. Pretty. Very pretty. But coloured, if you see what I mean. They all went together.”
“Where did they go?”
“Johannesburg.”
“Are you sure?”
“She gave me an address in the end. Case of letters for ’er from England.”
“Did one of the girls have black ringlets past her ears and dark brown eyes?”
“She was the prettiest of the lot.”
“Did she go with them?”
“Did you hear what I said? They all went together. When renting property, you got to know what’s going on.”
“Can you give me that address in Johannesburg?”
“If I can find it. Years ago it was. Grand name, remember that. Something to do with the Lord Mayor of London. The Mansion House. That’s it. And I should know. I’m a cockney, see.”
At the reception desk of the Langham Hotel, Jack had asked, strangely expecting a positive answer, if the man knew a house in Johannesburg called the Mansion House. The man had not even bothered to turn from the row of keys in their pigeonholes to give him the address, which came with directions, and a street address. “Any one of the taxi drivers will take you there, sir. Would you like tea or coffee in the morning?”
It would have been better to have a good night’s sleep, drink the tea in the morning, go back to the Johannesburg railway station, and start the journey home to England. But he had come this far. And Mrs Flugelhorne had been hanged for murdering her husband. And Ernest Gilchrist had said it had everything to do with Sallie Barker. The ends were still untied. It would nag his mind for ages if he did not find out once and for all. ‘And frankly,’ he told himself, ‘I don’t have much else to do with my life,’ even though he knew that curiosity killed the cat, and usually, in life, it was better to mind one’s own damn business.
It was past midnight, the train having only arrived in Johannesburg at eight o’clock that evening. The cab driver had needed neither directions nor the street address. The Mansion House, when he walked in, having given his hat and cane to a pretty hat-check girl, the same cane with the hidden sword inside, was packed with people. They had first made him sign a register to become a club member, whatever that was. He had given a false name and a false address in London. They had explained the three bars in a way that let him choose his class. He would not be drinking with the gold miners.
A small string
quartet was playing in what the man at reception called the most exclusive lounge even if it was a little expensive! The quartet was remarkably good. Jack recognised a Beethoven late quartet. He made his way across to the bar and there holding court was his one-time gentleman’s gentleman, Albert Pringle. The young man looked disgustingly prosperous, though for Jack’s taste a little too flashy. Like magnets, their eyes drew together despite the years and the crowded room. Jack thought afterwards it was probably due to a bad conscience. Jack also suspected he was the last person Albert Pringle expected to see across the crowded room, or wanted to see for that matter. Well, that untied string was about to be tied.
Albert Pringle’s whole stomach flipped over in one sickening heave. In a moment, he went from being a man about town, a man of property, to being a manservant for Jack Merryweather, the man he had run away from and his job. It was not a pleasant feeling.
“Got to go,” he said to no one and everyone as the crowd briefly obscured Jack Merryweather of 27 Baker Street. “Got to go.”
Albert ducked under the service counter of the bar, and without standing up straight pushed open the service door at the back corner of the bar, and escaped into the kitchen that served the four small dining rooms. Moving with the speed of a small boy caught in a terrible act, he ran through the kitchen and up the back stairs that led to the private suite on the top floor, away from the well-used bedrooms on the floor below.