The burgher shook his head and began walking off to his tiny province beside the track. He doused the lights and closed up his little hut before setting off along the road with the mailbag under his arm. Feeling curiously uneasy Vere ran after him.
‘What did you mean about no one staying at the hotel?’
‘No one is there.’ He walked on in determined fashion leaving Vere standing in the dark street.
‘Mrs Munroe and her son?’ Vere called out in sharp tones.
‘Gone.’
He ran after the retreating figure once more. ‘Gone? Gone where?’
The burgher shrugged and continued plodding.
‘When? When did they go?’ Vere demanded through a throat grown dry with inexplicable apprehension. ‘Were they escorted, did they get a train, has something happened to the boy?’
The questions went unanswered as the man opened a gate leading to a small shack half-way along the road and approached its door. Angry and alarmed, Vere dashed forward to vault the low fence and put himself between the door and his quarry, whose face was no more than a pale blur in the darkness.
‘I have to know Mrs Munroe’s whereabouts,’ he insisted with as much authority as he could muster. ‘It’s a matter of extreme urgency. You’ll be well rewarded if you tell me all you know.’
‘How much?’
‘That depends on how much you tell me. Come on, out with it.’
‘What has she done?’
‘Out with it!’ cried Vere, seizing the man’s lapels. ‘Five weeks, six weeks, perhaps longer, she sold out to Millbrook’s for a wagon and two horses. They left early one morning; her, the boy and that hound. Took old Amos Drurie’s rifle, and a small chest besides blankets and a mattress. This is all I know. Now pay me!’
‘Where was she heading?’
‘Through the nek.’
‘Where does it lead?’
‘Anywhere. It is the only road out of Vrymanskop.’ Vere could not believe what he had heard, yet this man was not the kind to invent such a story. He was too dour and unimaginative. He had also stated that they had gone before receiving his offer of a reward. Vere asked if anyone in Vrymanskop would know the family’s destination.
‘No … nor would they care,’ was the response. ‘She was a stranger, a diamond-fields woman. Her kind is not welcome in a decent district.’
Vere clutched the man’s coat tighter in anger. ‘Was she driven out of Vrymanskop?’
‘Not her! Bold she was, and determined. But we all knew what went on inside that place. Hardly a woman there, but she had as many as eight men staying at one time. No respectable widow would do that, and it was only her word that the man she had come here with was her husband. She quickly moved in with old Amos when she was deserted. Why would a pious bachelor leave all he had to a woman like that unless she coaxed him to do it? He was only one day buried when she … ’
Vere’s anger ruled him totally as he listened to these words about Kitty. Pushing the man away so roughly he almost fell, he cut the insinuations short. ‘A decent district, you say? May God forgive you all your lack of charity and your poisonous tongues. I’ll pay you nothing. I hope you rest uneasy in your bed tonight.’
Back at the hotel, Vere picked up his bag and walked around to the stoep where he had spent so many wonderful hours with Kitty and Simon. Wrapping himself in a cloak he settled in a corner, deeply distressed and worried, to stare at the surrounding hills whose flat tops were just visible as darker lines against the sky. What could have happened to make her leave in such a manner? How could a woman and a small boy survive on the veld alone? Where was she? She had left six weeks ago, possibly longer. She could be anywhere in this vast land by now.
For hour after hour he stared at the distance seeing only those days he had spent with her. She loved him, he had no doubts on that score. Had she tired of waiting and set out for Ladysmith in the hope of meeting him along the way? Had she or Simon, been taken ill en route and forced to stay in some outlying place? What should he do now? He was unlikely to learn from the stationmaster when another train was due through in the direction of Ladysmith. Traffic on the line had greatly increased now the siege was over so there was certain to be one tomorrow, yet what was the point in returning to the town he had just left? He could not simply wait there in the hope that Kitty would arrive in her wagon expecting to find him. But where else should he go? He cursed the community which had never accepted a diamond-fields woman, then his fist thumped in angry despair against the wall. He was now using that derogatory term!
He sat like a man in a fever until dawn began to put silver fingers across the sky. Only then did he see the obvious. Kitty knew this country well enough to be aware of its vast isolated distances. She could have had no knowledge of how long the battle for Ladysmith would last; so, if some person or event in Vrymanskop had forced her to leave, she would have left a message for him here in case they missed each other in the miles between. She knew he meant to come for her as soon as he could, so she would not risk losing all contact.
Jumping to his feet he began to search. The stoep would be an obvious place, or the front porch. Or even the stables. When he had exhausted all the likely spots he guessed Kitty must have given the letter to someone at the merchandizing warehouse which had taken possession of the hotel in exchange for a wagon and horses. Only when he was told by a cheerful manager that the widow Munroe had driven off before Christmas without even leaving a forwarding address, did Vere accept that he had been blind all along. Sitting on a wooden bench outside Millbrook’s he faced the fact that Kitty had run away from him.
Time passed unnoticed as he struggled against acceptance of her decision. She was the only woman with whom he wanted to share his future; the perfect soul mate. Yet she had gone because she believed Edward Pickering’s maxim that a relationship which bloomed in a foreign country would wither and die at home; she believed herself unfit to be his wife. Vere recalled their parting and her reaction to his news of Vorne’s death: ‘You are your grandfather’s heir?’ What a fool he had been to let that fact slip out. At the time he had not noted the significance of her words. Now they provided the answer to his present pain.
Not for a moment while he sat watching the sun climb into the sky did he face defeat. She loved him deeply, but mistakenly. His dilemma and despair were due to the difficulty of tracking her down. He tried to recall all she had said to him during their days together, searching for clues to aid his pursuit. Durban had been her hopeful destination when she had saved enough money. She had frequently spoken of the advantages Simon would have in a major town. His tiny leap of hope was smothered as instinct told him that she had made too much mention of the plan to follow it in these circumstances. He would too easily find her.
As minutes passed, an idea began to grow in his mind. Her brother was in Kimberley — or he had been when it had been besieged. Where else would she go but to her sole relative and the only real home she had ever known? A city under siege would suggest an unlikely destination for an unaccompanied woman and her son during a time of war, but Kitty was resourceful and used to holding her own in a country she had never viewed through a rosy glass. She knew enough of the Dutch language to get along with the farming people of the district, and had probably stopped in a safe place nearby until Kimberley was relieved. British troops had broken the siege almost three weeks ago. Vere guessed it would be easy enough for him to trace a young mining engineer named Gerald Jakes. The greater problem was how to get from Vrymanskop to a city half-way across South Africa in as fast a time as he wished.
*
Kimberley, a city existing purely because of the wealth of diamonds in its blue earth, stood like a rich oasis in the heart of a great arid plain. There was little evidence of the place Kitty had described. In the years since her departure with William Munroe, the Diamond City had acquired elegance and respectability which was impressive, despite damage by shelling and the trappings of war. Here was a much grander settlement
than Ladysmith, which could only boast of being an important rail junction. Here lived the diamond millionaires, the giants who remained after the legion of dead and defeated prospectors had departed the scene. Here lived Cecil Rhodes, whose dreams for Africa had no limits.
Streets were lined with mansions of style and striking architecture. There was a racecourse busily being repaired for a coming meeting, a public library of some consequence, a large theatre, extensive botanical gardens, and stately centres of commerce. Most surprising of all, to Vere, was the Kimberley Club, an establishment along the lines of the most revered of London’s refuges for gentlemen of means and status. Viewing it all through a military eye on the day of his arrival, Vere was astonished by the Boers’ failure to swoop from the encircling hills and capture this prestigious jewel. The siege had been humiliating enough for the British; to have let such a city fall into enemy hands would have been total disaster. However worthy a foe in other respects, the Boers had made a mammoth tactical error here.
Vere’s artistic eye saw something quite different. The streets were lined with vivid blossoms; trees stood brightly green against a cloudless deeper blue sky. White columns of banks and diamond centres contrasted strongly with the red dust streets. A picturesque wrought iron market hall contained colourful fruits and vegetables, rolls of cloth in rainbow colours, beadwork, ostrich feathers and all manner of bric-a-brac precious to citizens who lived in the middle of nowhere. Electric trams rattled through the main street — an incongruous echo of foggy London or drab Liverpool in the heart of a wild, sun-baked area. Even the rearing headgear and mounds of displaced earth which marked the mines had a certain alien beauty. Despite his eagerness to find Kitty, the painter in Vere knew he must stay long enough to record for himself and The Illustrated Magazine the heart of this city of diamonds.
The old coaching inn, where a room was reserved for him, was a good place to begin his enquiries for Gerald Jakes. He was advised to ride along to the De Beers offices, where any question concerning mining or those involved in the diamond industry was certain to be answered. Stopping only long enough to wash and change his clothes, Vere followed this advice. It had taken him eight days to reach Kimberley, yet he was now too impatient to waste even a minute. After hiring a horse from the stable, he set off for De Beers telling himself that, even if Kitty were not here, her brother would surely know her whereabouts.
An elderly, pale faced clerk wearing a pince-nez kept clearing his throat in nervous fashion, while searching through a thick ledger until he reached the correct page.
‘Ah, yes. Yes, indeed,’ he declared, peering up at Vere as he held a finger on the book. ‘Mr Gerald Jakes. You are quite right, sir.’
‘Where may I find him?’ asked Vere irritably.
‘Well, now. That’s a different ledger, sir. If you will kindly wait until I exchange this one for the relevant volume, I believe I shall be able to give you the information you require.’
Vere wondered if the clerk had ever been young, had ever been in love, and even if he was aware that he had been under siege for three months. Possibly, he had been so busy with his ledgers it had escaped his notice. There was further delay after Vere was told which mine Kitty’s brother was concerned with, because he then asked for the address of Mr Jakes’s lodging. Twenty minutes after entering the office, he left it armed with directions to a quiet street not far from where he stood. The time was just before noon. Should he go first to the mine, or take a chance that Jakes would return home for his lunch? He took a chance.
The house was being painted white after what appeared to be extensive repairs. The ground to the left of it was marred by a crater in the process of being filled in by a team of black men with large shovels. The results of shelling, no doubt. Had Gerald Jakes been a victim of it? Vere then recalled Kitty saying that her brother had joined the Diamond Fields Horse on the outbreak of war. What if the only link with Kitty had been killed?
He dismounted, tethered his horse, then walked swiftly up the steps to the front door reached from the veranda. Before he could knock, however, he was set upon by a lion-coloured tornado on four legs, which was closely followed by another on two.
‘You came! You came!’ shouted Simon, laughing and crying simultaneously while Kimber barked and leapt in joy.
Vere caught up the boy in his arms. ‘Of course I came! I told you I would,’ he declared in a voice rough with emotion. ‘I always try to keep my word, Simon, even when people do the unexpected.’
‘Mother said you had been sent to England, so we must come and live with Uncle Gerald,’ Simon told him, clutching Vere around the neck as if never to let him go. ‘Are you going to be my father and take me to England after all?’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘And Kimber, too?’
‘If he will stop attempting to knock me over.’
The front door opened. Kitty looked pale and shaken as her gaze met Vere’s over the child’s shoulder. He let Simon slide to his feet and pushed the dog aside, saying quietly, ‘Keep Kimber happy while I talk to your mother.’
As he stepped forward Kitty said in a near whisper, ‘How very foolish! What will it take to make you see sense?’
‘May I come in?’
‘No, Vere. There is no point in further discussion. I left because it was the wisest thing to do. Please respect my decision, and go.’
He put out his hand to grip the doorframe while he looked down at her. ‘We made a joint decision to marry, as I recall. I have waited three weary, soul-destroying months for this meeting, and you have put me to a deal of trouble to find you. I’ve no wish to force an entry, but I will if I have to.’
Kitty spun on her heels and led the way to a lace-curtained parlour, the stiffness of her back and distant manner telling him that aggression rather than tenderness would be needed to win her over. Her determination and strength of character he so admired would have to be countered by his own. Any attempt to take her in his arms would be a mistake. That would have to wait until after the certain clash of wills. When he closed the door she turned to face him, a dignified figure in a high-necked blouse of figured lawn and a long claret-coloured skirt which he could visualize standing in any room at Knightshill and enhancing it.
‘How did you trace us?’ she asked with a hint of anger.
‘Because I remembered every word you ever said to me, even before you promised to become my wife.’
‘You coerced me. I was against it all along.’
He shook his head. ‘Coercion suggests force or undue threat. The pact was made in the most delightful of circumstances. If force there was, it took the form of very masculine persuasion to which you were more than happy to succumb.’
Although she grew paler still at his words, she remained resolute. ‘You were not honest with me. The man I agreed to marry could not decide whether to be a soldier or an artist; he was a man who claimed to be the misfit in a noble family. That last revealed only under pressure, you must own.’
‘I thought it unimportant compared with our love for each other.’
‘Unimportant!’ she cried, aloofness flaring into passion. ‘I know the penalties of unequal marriages. My mother suffered deeply as a result of her love for Monkford Kellaway, but she was a daughter easily relinquished by her influential family. A son is altogether different. He cannot be banished from society when he bears a noble name which will be passed on to his children and their descendants. He must continue to be accepted by his equals while they snub his unsuitable wife and malign him for a fool behind his back.’
Vere sighed. ‘I thought I had convinced you at Vrymanskop that I don’t give a damn about what is said behind my back, and that you are the most suitable wife that I could have. All this was discussed under the most intimate circumstances possible. If you have forgotten, I shall take the greatest pleasure in repeating them to aid your memory.’
She backed away from him, her passion increasing. ‘I have not forgotten. How could I? It would
never have happened had I known the truth about you.’
He knew what she meant. ‘I am a man you loved enough to surrender to. It makes no difference whether I’m a younger itinerant grandson or the unexpected heir to an estate and fortune.’
‘It makes all the difference. An heir has obligations to family and heritage. He cannot pursue an obsession with someone he sees as the answer to his search for artistic fulfilment. An heir must choose a bride with care when the future of a great family is at stake.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, advancing on her. ‘We shall ensure that our children and grandchildren possess all the virtues and graces. You made me a promise which kept me going throughout the terrible months that followed. I demand that you honour it.’
‘I did not know all the facts when I made it,’ she cried. ‘You charmed me into agreeing to something that made no sense after you left. I came here because I knew you’d return for me and that you would live to regret a marriage based on a brief encounter on the veld. You saw it through a rosy glass, Vere. I warned you of it.’
‘And followed that warning with several uninhibited nights in my arms to make the glass even rosier,’ he retorted with some force. ‘For heaven’s sake, let’s put aside all this nonsense. My patience is wearing thin.’
‘Then just hear this! I’ve scrubbed floors, darned clothes and cooked for my family. I’ve put men to bed when they came home drunk, and I’ve cleared up the mess they made. I’m no sheltered creature unused to anything unpleasant or ugly. I’ve heard oaths enough to last me a lifetime and I’ve mixed with people of every kind. I’ve none of the genteel graces that make a female a lady. I’m known as a diamond-fields woman whether I like it or not,’ she ended defiantly.
‘Then you hear this,’ Vere countered swiftly, advancing on her once more. ‘I was once so besotted with the kind of creature you say you are not, that I ran away to die in the steps of her hero when she rejected me. That was when I began to live. I have been rough and have committed the usual sins of military men. I have been put to bed drunk; I have uttered countless oaths. I’m no gilded hero or dutiful heir. My grandfather considers me a total failure as his successor.’ He had manoeuvred her into a corner so that she was neatly trapped. ‘My greatest folly so far, however, was to seduce a respectable widow then give her the opportunity to slip away from me. But there’s no further escape. I’m determined to marry her and take her home.’
A Distant Hero Page 23