Yesterday's Promise

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Arcilla winced at the boring thought. Piano… She had always loathed piano because it meant long hours of tedious practice.

  “Far better Evy were here with me. Do you suppose—”

  “No. She has her own life to live, and you have yours now. I’ll tell you what I think, Arcilla. I think Julien is right to a certain extent.”

  “Julien, right?” She could not hide the surprise in her voice. This she hadn’t expected from her brother, who normally went along with her wishes.

  “Yes, I don’t really approve of the long, perhaps dangerous trek to the Zambezi, but since Peter is going and will help represent Rhodes’s company at the colony, you would do well to be with your husband.”

  “But Peter is so dreadful,” she said, trying to make light of his suggestion. She didn’t want to admit Rogan was right. “I shall never forgive him for doing just as Julien wants. Parnell, too. He and Peter both are at Kimberly doing whatever Sir Julien bids them.” She looked at him with a little caution. “If Julien knew you were here, he would be upset. You were supposed to finish out your year at the business in London.”

  “I find diamond cutting interesting, but for me—an unnecessary skill, and the shipping aspect, much too routine.”

  “What does the proper rectory girl think of your restless temperament?”

  Rogan changed the subject as smoothly as turning a page. “I endured the shipping for almost a year after my graduation from the university. You know I’ve long had plans of sailing here to the Cape to pursue my own dreams. It’s never been far from my thinking.”

  “Julien will be surprised.” She read the hard set of his jaw.

  “For the present, it’s just as well he doesn’t know. I plan to go straight to Kimberly to look up Derwent. So then…” He studied her face before continuing. “Can you help Peter understand? I’m sure he’ll try if you give him a chance.”

  “It’s not all Peter,” she admitted, throwing up her hands. “He’s kind enough to me…but he’s away so much of the time at Kimberly.”

  “Well, then, go to Kimberly and remind him he has a wife. That will get his attention.”

  She smiled, amused by Rogan’s boldness. “I have gone to Kimberly several times. The family has a beautiful house there. In fact, Cousin Darinda is there now. She spends more time in Kimberly than she does here in Capetown. She’s dreadful, so unamusing. She thinks like a man.”

  Arcilla saw a smile on his face.

  “How interesting. I should think that would make Parnell happy.”

  “On the contrary, Parnell is furious. She keeps him dangling.”

  “I’m sure Julien will put an end to the dangling when he decides Parnell deserves the prize of his granddaughter.”

  “Prize? Hah. She wants to travel the diamond and gold fields with her grandfather—imagine that! So absurd, but Julien seems pleased to let her accompany him wherever he goes. It is quite annoying how he dotes on her every wish. She can do what no one else can, twist him around her little finger.”

  “Can she? How interesting.” He stroked his mustache.

  “Don’t get any ideas, my dear brother. Parnell is quite enraptured with her and will demand a duel of anyone else who tries to win her affection,” she said cheerfully. “She can even shoot. She likes to hunt with Uncle Julien.”

  Rogan merely lifted a brow at this news. She hurried on. “But it’s not Darinda, or Peter. It’s Julien sending us to the colony that is so positively ghastly. Darinda wants to come too. Oh, Rogan! You simply must be with us and Peter on the venture. If you’d only cooperate with Julien on that gold prospecting dream of yours, it would solve everything.”

  She saw the hard glitter in his eyes beneath the slashing dark brows.

  “I refuse to join forces with Sir Julien. What I plan to do, I’ll do on my own without any help from him.” Then his tone relaxed. “But I am sorry about the trek north. It will be hard on you, no doubt, but that’s where Peter comes in. Really, Arcilla, you ought to be able to talk this through with him.”

  Her frustration broke. “Talk to him? I might as well talk to Jasper for all the good it does. At least Jasper listens to me.”

  “Jasper?”

  She saw his eyes darken, and she smiled sweetly and picked up her little poodle that had been sleeping at her feet. “How’s my precious, sweetie Jasper? Oh, you’re such a darling.” She kissed the dog’s little ears, and it licked her cheek.

  Rogan’s mouth twisted. “Really, Arcilla.”

  “I’m serious, Rogan. If you don’t join Rhodes’s company, you won’t amount to anything in South Africa. And besides all that, I need you on that trek north. I’d feel so much better if you were there. And Peter needs you too. When he learns you’re here, he’ll be so pleased.”

  Rogan looked immovable. He folded his arms in a stance she remembered all too well.

  “Isn’t Parnell going with Peter?”

  The suggestion that Parnell’s presence would make matters better for her and Peter was dismissed with a toss of her head.

  “Yes, he’s coming, I suppose, but that doesn’t much matter. He’s no help to me at all. Although, he’s not keen on going either. He and I do share that in common. We both abhor uncomfortable lifestyles. Heat, dust, insects—oh, the insects! Horrid, beastly things! They scare me out of my wits. And Parnell, well, he’s merely going because of Darinda. He’d go to the moon to be with her if she had a notion it was possible to go there.” She looked over at Rogan, adding in a quiet tone, “Besides, Parnell’s worried about Captain Retford and Darinda.”

  “Captain Retford? Who is he?”

  His alert gaze made her wish she hadn’t been so quick to mention him.

  “He works for Peter. A personal assistant of sorts. He’s a soldier. He’s with Peter now.”

  Under her brother’s long and searching look, she felt her face turning warm and slanted her eyes away. She fussed with Jasper, straightening his jeweled collar.

  “You see, Parnell thinks Darinda is attracted to Captain Retford.”

  “Is she? That’s rotten luck for poor old Parnell. He’s had his cap set on Darinda for years.”

  “Darinda is hard to know… I must admit the captain is quite handsome. A bit like you, actually.”

  “Arcilla.”

  His stern but soft voice brought her hurried denial. “Don’t be silly, Rogan. After that simply ghastly situation with Elizabeth’s fiancé, do you think I’m witless enough to get myself entangled in such a mess again?” Anyway, Peter would be there.

  “Please see that you don’t forget discretion, sister dear. For Peter, as well as yourself.”

  “You sound as prudish as old Derwent. He’s at Kimberly too, but you know that.” She laughed suddenly. “Alice makes his life miserable.” She mimicked the girl’s nagging voice: “Where’s all that gold, Derwent? Where? Where is it? You promised me. You promised Mummy and Daddy we’d be rich when we go home to Grimston Way. You promised Rogan Chantry knew where the gold was, and all you do is work for that nasty hunter, Mornay.”

  Rogan’s head turned sharply. “Derwent works for who? Mornay? You don’t mean Giles Mornay?”

  His robust interest surprised her. “Why, yes… I think that’s his name. Alice mentioned him several times. She writes me, complaining all the time.”

  “Well, well. Again, I’ve underestimated the jolly Derwent.”

  Arcilla wondered at his thoughtfulness and distracted smile. “Why does Giles Mornay interest you?” And then as he stared back evenly, she sucked in her breath. “Oh. Now I understand. He’s a hunter and guide. So that’s why Derwent is with him. Alice couldn’t understand it. She wrote me begging to get Derwent a job here in Capetown. Tell me seriously, Rogan. Are you and Derwent going on a trek of your own? I mean, how can you? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to join Rhodes’s company and go with his pioneers? You know so little about this dreadful Africa.”

  “Dreadful? You goose. It’s wild and passionate! It sends my heart th
udding and my energies swimming upstream.”

  She laughed. “Same adventurous brother. Well, you can have it.”

  “Of course, I don’t know the land yet. That’s where a good guide comes in. Giles Mornay knows the land and the tribes better than most. I’ve studied everything I can get my hands on for years—you know that. I’ve a degree in geology. But nothing will make up for solid field experience. Though I’m determined to learn quickly.”

  “As if we all didn’t know that. For years and years, it was that silly old map of Uncle Henry’s. I’ll wager he lied about a gold deposit, anyway. And you’ve not the foggiest notion where to look on the Zambezi—or whatever that area north of us is called.”

  He laughed at her, and she tackled the subject again, still hoping. “Rogan, please, you will cooperate with Uncle Julien, won’t you? You will come with us and work for Peter at the colony?”

  “No.”

  She frowned at him. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

  “More sorry if I do.”

  “Julien isn’t a man to fight against, Rogan. He always has his way, and he always wins.”

  “Not this time. I know all about dear Uncle Julien, so save your breath. Look, Arcilla, I’ll share something with you I haven’t told anyone else—” He hesitated, barely able to restrain the excitement in his voice. “I found Henry’s map.”

  “You found…” She drew in her breath and stared at him, knowing her eyes must be wide, for he grinned down at her.

  “I told you I would one day, did I not? Well, I have it. And I want to form my own expedition under Giles Mornay. He’s the son of Bertrand Mornay, the guide who first led Uncle Henry to the Zambezi region years ago.”

  “Then Julien doesn’t know about the map? He’ll be absolutely dazed.”

  “I don’t want him to know until I’m safely across the Limpopo River headed toward the Zambezi.”

  “Well, if anyone would know about guides besides Giles Mornay and Derwent, it would be Darinda. I told you, didn’t I, that she admires hunters and guides, soldiers, those sorts of brave men. It’s one of the reasons she’s doubtful about marrying Parnell. She told me she fears he won’t have the courage to stand up to Julien.”

  “An odd statement seeing as how she likes to be with her grandfather. Didn’t you say she wraps him around her little finger?”

  “Coming from her, that sort of statement is reasonable. I told you. Darinda is odd. Anyway, she may know Giles Mornay.”

  “Thanks for the tip. But if she’s as close to her grandfather as you hint, I wouldn’t trust her with my plans. I’ll talk business with Mornay before it can get back to Julien. He’ll be onto me faster than a crocodile after a drowning swimmer if he knows I’ve got Henry’s map.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  Rogan laughed. “Remember the painting Henry did of the battle of Isandlwana?”

  Arcilla wrinkled her nose. “That simply horrid thing, yes. Don’t tell me—”

  “Yes. Amusing, isn’t it? All those years it was under my very nose. I should have known. Henry hinted enough about that painting.”

  “Did he? Well, what does it look like? The map, I mean. Show it to me, Rogan.”

  “Not now. It just looks like an old map.”

  “Julien will find out, you know.” She looked at him warily. “You can’t hide anything that valuable for long. If you’d join the Company now, the way he wants, you could use the map to make your own terms.”

  “Crafty, aren’t you, little sister? Maybe I could, but I don’t trust him.”

  She remembered Rogan as a boy trying to outfox Julien at Rookswood. He had deliberately kept some old maps in an ottoman just to fool Julien if he caught Rogan in Uncle Henry’s room. Arcilla shivered. She hated those awful rooms on the third floor.

  “Look, I’ll talk to Peter about you,” Rogan said, but there was a hesitancy in his voice as if he, too, wondered what good it would do. “I’m sure he’ll do something about your concerns, Arcilla. You say he’s at Kimberly with Parnell?”

  “Yes. Julien sent him there to talk with Mr. Rhodes’s man, Dr. Jameson. Something about Bulawayo and that African chief who lives there with his warriors. Anyway, I’ll be going to Kimberly soon myself with Julien. Talk to Peter if you will, but he won’t make a move unless Julien gives him permission.” She snatched her red feather fan from the carriage seat where Rogan had placed it and swished it nervously.

  “When you agreed to marry Peter, you promised to stand with him wherever he went,” Rogan said gently. “You knew of Julien’s plans to send him to the new colony. We discussed all that in London on more than one occasion. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember, and I remember how I loathed the idea the first time I heard it. What choice did I really have?”

  “Practically none,” he agreed and looked angry but restrained. “I talked to Father about it. I wish he had listened. You could have fought harder for Charles. I was surprised when you didn’t.”

  She looked at him startled. “Fought harder for Charles Bancroft? I did, for days. Don’t you remember? It was Charles who didn’t fight for me!”

  “Yes, perhaps because his father was rather against the marriage.”

  “Well! I…I didn’t know that.” She fumed, feeling hurt and disappointed. She had always thought Lord Bancroft approved of her.

  “I thought you would surely go to Aunt Elosia and appeal to her,” Rogan said. “She would have backed you up. I’m not saying Julien would have given up his plans to have you and Peter marry, but the four of us together might have at least delayed things.”

  The four of us. That meant Rogan would have fought for her too. The idea both depressed and encouraged her. If Rogan had been willing to stand for her back then, why not now? Rogan was strong, whereas she was afraid. And dear Peter couldn’t see further ahead than his duty and honor to the British Empire.

  “Well,” he said quietly, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze, “that’s all behind us. We must move on. Come, Arcilla, it’s not as bad as all that, is it? I mean, you do like Peter, don’t you?”

  She looked at him and saw that he was quite grave, and suddenly she laughed. “I had better, don’t you think?” She waved her wedding ring, and the large diamond and gold shimmered.

  Rogan covered her hand with his and said soberly, “Remember that next time when some soppy-eyed dandy asks you to step out into the garden.”

  She dropped her gaze. “It won’t happen again… I promise. But you’ve got to make Peter understand if Julien tells him about the garden incident.”

  Rogan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Julien will say nothing. He could lose Peter if he did.”

  She looked at him hopefully. “Do you think so?”

  “I’m fairly sure.”

  “Well, I’m not as certain.”

  “I don’t think Julien will tell him. He was trying to bully you. It’s his way to threaten to get what he wants. But this time I agree with Julien, not in bullying, of course, but I, too, want you with Peter, sister dear.”

  “I hope you’re right…about not telling Peter. That trek north through savage country, wild animals, and horrid weather is going to be awful… Oh, I detest the very thought. Yet, I think you’re right.” She looked at him again. “If you were with Peter helping him at the new colony, I would feel so much better about everything. Including Peter. He needs you, Rogan. So do I.”

  She could see her words brought him concern, and she knew she was unfair in taking advantage of his brotherly loyalty, but what else could she do?

  “Please, Rogan!”

  “I’ll consider,” he said flatly, “but I won’t promise you, Arcilla.”

  She was far from satisfied, yet knew she could go no further with him for the time being. Still, there had to be a way if she thought about it long enough.

  “Enough of unpleasant things for now,” she said with forced cheer. “If you won’t go see Julien now, and insist on
going to Kimberly, then I’ll bring you to the train depot. On the way you must tell me all the news. Tell me about Evy, Grimston Way, and what girl Charles is seeing now…”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rogan had managed to deliver his baggage to the railway and purchase a ticket for a sleeping compartment. It was several hundred miles northeast to Kimberly. The train rattled over the track northward through a wide, flat plain dotted with thorn scrub and grasses. Rogan stood at the back of the train enjoying the wind, the fragrance of the open veld, and the expansive view. Before darkness fully settled, he saw some steenbok antelope and a pair of solitary gray duiker that were early morning and evening feeders. He watched the pair through his glass, noting the variable color from grizzled gray to a yellowish fawn, with a dark stripe down the nose. The male had long, slender upright horns. As the intruding train neared them, he watched their zigzag run and plunging leaps as they darted across the golden veld to take cover in thicker brush.

  With the darkness came a stillness, except for the lonely rhythm of the train’s engine passing through the wild, open land. He looked up at the dark, star-tossed sky until he found the constellation of the Southern Cross. An awesome longing came over him at the realization of the greatness of God, a longing he could not satisfy. He tried to think of what Evy might say if she were here now.

  The first rosy glow of sunrise in the eastern sky tinted the distant, brooding hills to salmon, while a delicate mist garlanded the rocky crests. A short time later that morning, the train pulled into Kimberly’s switching line yards where much activity was under way.

  Rogan jumped down onto the platform as the locomotive slowed to a stop. Heaving his bag over his shoulder, he turned to the conductor.

  “Where’s a good room with a bath and something decent to eat?”

  The man gestured his head up De Beers Road. “Blue Diamond.” He looked Rogan over. “Mighty expensive for a new digger, though. What’s your name, young man?”

  He refrained. He might learn more if he acted like a busted prospector newly arrived from England.