Blue Fire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Why does Mara continue to work for my father? Will she leave now, do you suppose?”

  “I doubt it,” Dirk said frankly. “Uncle Niklaas would be hard put to train someone to his ways as thoroughly as Mara has been trained. She’s necessary to him. Can’t the three of us be adult enough to accept that?”

  She was not sure she could ever accept such a situation and she was positive that Mara could not. But there was a softening toward her in Dirk’s manner and that was all that mattered. She raised her head from the pillow and in a moment she was in his arms, her cheek in the comforting hollow of his shoulder. He held her to him, murmuring assurances of his love in her ear. This was what she had wanted and needed. Mara could not touch her here.

  But long before she was ready to leave the safety of his arms, he took her by the shoulders and held her away so that he could look into her face.

  “There’s something else we must talk about, Susan. I’ve just learned that there was a meeting between Cornish and your father this afternoon. It’s hard to believe it was an accident. Can you tell me how it came about?”

  So he knew, and there was no help for it.

  “I arranged it,” she admitted. “I telephoned Mr. Cornish and let him know where Father would be this afternoon.”

  The moment of tenderness was past. Dirk let her go and rose, moving about the room as if to restrain himself. When he turned back to the bed, she watched him miserably.

  “Cornish is actually moving into Protea Hill,” Dirk said, “and what will come of it I don’t know. He’s a troublemaker, as I’ve warned you, and he can harm us all. Particularly your father. Now it will be harder than ever to save Uncle Niklaas from harm.”

  Here it was again—that threat of something hidden in their lives, and further evidence of a devotion to Niklaas that had grown from past gratitude into a near obsession.

  “Father knows you kept the letters from him that John Cornish wrote,” she said, trying to speak coolly herself. “Has he told you that?”

  “Yes! And he wasn’t pleased. Couldn’t you see that I was acting out of concern for Uncle Niklaas? What am I to do about a wife who betrays me at every turn?”

  The shock of his words was like ice water in her face. She put up her hands as if she might ward them off physically.

  “I would never betray you!” she cried. “Never, never! That’s not fair. You haven’t tried to understand my feelings in this. How could I stand by and let John Cornish write lies about my mother? That must be stopped and Father is the only one who can stop it.”

  “Your father is an old man—he will stop nothing. But now you’ve offered him innocently into the lion’s paws. How can you be sure that what Cornish might say about your mother is a lie? How do you know you haven’t made everything worse by getting your father and John Cornish together in such headlong haste?”

  “Claire was my mother,” Susan protested. “I know how silly it is to think she might be guilty of what Cornish suggests.”

  “Is it silly?” Once more Dirk sat beside her on the bed. He took her hands into his own strong clasp. “I wonder how I can make you understand what your father has been through. Even what he’s going through now, with your return to South Africa and the opening of old wounds. Even the publicity our marriage has been given in the papers lately has focused attention on him. Do you think he’s a man to carry disgrace lightly? And what of our children, darling—growing up here? The grandchildren of an important and well-respected man who broke his country’s laws and went to prison as a thief!”

  She was silent, a little frightened by his vehemence. Somehow she had been divorcing her father and all that concerned him from her own life and Dirk’s, as if the past could not touch them in any way. But it was true that she wanted children—Dirk’s children. She had not considered this aspect of the future.

  “I’m sorry,” she said more humbly. “Perhaps I’m the one who hasn’t tried to understand your viewpoint, or my father’s. What do you want me to do to help?”

  “Have you tried what I’ve suggested?” he asked. “Have you really tried to remember the things that happened to you just before you left South Africa?”

  “I have tried,” she told him in a low voice. “But nothing comes clear. I can remember a few things, and then everything disappears in a fog. Sometimes I think I’m afraid to remember.”

  “I’ve suspected that was true,” Dirk said. “But if you understand the reasons behind what I’m asking of you—if you somehow force this thing through—”

  “Through to what? I don’t even know what it is that I’m trying to remember.”

  “Through to the Kimberley Royal,” Dirk said.

  There was a moment of silence in the room and Mara’s words concerning her marriage swept sharply through Susan’s mind. But that was the very thing Mara wanted. It was her purpose to rouse suspicion in Dirk’s wife. And Susan would have none of that.

  Dirk was speaking again and she listened. “Even your mother seemed to think you knew something,” he reminded her, “that you might have witnessed something. If you don’t remember, it will always look as though she took the diamond herself when she left South Africa. If she really did, then we ought to know because it may lead us to the truth about the other diamonds.”

  “It wasn’t my mother,” Susan whispered, the strength of her denial fading a little. “We never had much money and Mother worked hard all the time I was growing up. If we’d owned a fortune, don’t you suppose things might have been different?”

  “Perhaps she was afraid to sell it.”

  “If she had it, then I’d have found it in her possessions after she died. And surely she would have given me some warning about it.”

  “The warning she sent was to your father,” Dirk said. “Now the rest is up to you.”

  Susan sat up on the bed and slid her feet to the floor. She had a feeling of being hopelessly cornered, so that whichever way she turned disaster faced her. But she no longer felt sick and sad. Dirk was right. The time for action was upon her.

  “All right then—I’ll try in every way I know to remember,” she promised. “I’ll do my best to find the truth, whatever it is.”

  He cupped her face with his two hands and kissed her warmly. “There’s my girl. Between us, we’ll clear old Niklaas yet.”

  She was not at all sure that would be the final result, but she knew now that she must move ahead in some positive way.

  “First of all you’ll have to get me into Father’s house,” she said. “I want to go upstairs. I want to see my old room. How else can I begin to remember?”

  “That’s easily arranged. Let’s give your father a few days’ time to get Cornish settled, and then I’ll talk to him about your seeing the house. But we mustn’t say it’s because you want to recall something about the diamond. There are times when I think your father doesn’t want to know what became of it. He hasn’t that much liking for diamonds. In fact, he’s almost superstitious about the Kimberley.”

  “Perhaps he’s right to be,” Susan murmured.

  Dirk laughed and drew her into his arms. “At least we’ve cleared up the doldrums. You’re all right again, aren’t you, darling? You won’t worry any more about Mara?”

  “Not if you say I needn’t,” she told him. The bliss of being safe again, of having his love close about her, was the only thing that mattered. She would do everything she could to please him.

  13

  A few mornings later, with time on her hands once more, Susan went down to the library at the end of the Avenue, where Adderley Street began, to look up some books on photography. When she had what she wanted, she came out the door to discover Thomas Scott standing on the library steps with a book in his hands. He was leafing through the pages with such absorption that he did not see her, and she was struck by the change in him.

  The usual guard he seemed to hold against everyone had lifted. He had lost himself completely in the book he held and it occurred to her that a
shot of him here on the steps might fit into the series she was planning.

  If he saw her, the picture would be spoiled, so she focused her camera quickly and set the stops. As the shutter clicked, Thomas looked up from his page and saw her. With a quick, almost secretive movement, he closed the book and thrust it under one arm.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Susan said, abashed a little too late by this invasion of his privacy. “You—you made such a good picture there on the steps and …” Her words died lamely away at his lack of response.

  For an instant she saw hostility flare in his eyes. Then his guard was in place again as he came down the steps toward her.

  “Good morning, madam,” he said correctly and made no reference to the picture she had taken.

  “How is my father?” she asked, wanting to hold him there a moment and perhaps find a way to soften her action, to apologize, if that would help.

  Thomas gestured toward the gardens. “Mr. van Pelt is just over there, madam, if you wish to see him.” He touched his cap and walked away, the book still under his arm. For all his courtesy, she felt that she had been reproved, and with justification. But the change she had seen so briefly in his face held her interest, and she wondered what book might have given him that different look.

  She stood on the sidewalk for a moment longer, watching passers-by and the hurrying traffic. The usual assorted crowd thronged Adderley Street. There were Malay women with veils across their foreheads and under their chins, colored messenger boys wearing white pith helmets, now and then a “blanket native,” barefoot and wearing wrapped about him the blanket that distinguished him from those who had left the reservation long behind. There were many white people, of course, and many of the colored people of the Cape.

  When she turned toward the gardens she did not move quickly, not being entirely sure that she wanted to see her father. None of her meetings with him had been very happy ones, and perhaps he took no more joy in her company than she had found in his. However, since Thomas might report having seen her, it seemed only courteous to stop and speak to him.

  She followed a path into this unexplored corner of the garden, past the marble statue of Sir George Grey, a gentleman in a long coat and tight trousers who had once been governor here. Then around an ancient and enormous holly oak where a colored man and woman sat together on a bench, speaking earnestly. There were no “Europeans Only” designations here.

  The path led her toward a quiet and secluded corner and she saw the sign at once—this was a garden set apart for the blind. On a green bench in the sunlight sat her father, his hands resting in characteristic fashion on the head of his cane, and a look so dreaming and gentle upon his face that she hardly knew him.

  “Good morning, Father,” she said hesitantly. “I met Thomas just now on the library steps and he said you were here.”

  “He accepted her presence without surprise, and motioned to the bench beside him. “Won’t you join me? I’ve been sitting here thinking about your mother.”

  Always before when Claire’s name had been mentioned there had been a coldness in his tone. But now there was a tenderness she had not heard before. She sat beside him in silence, not wanting to break this gentle spell that lay upon him.

  “Do you remember how much your mother loved flowers?” he asked.

  “I remember,” she said. “That was the thing she liked best about South Africa—the flowers.”

  For a little while he was silent. When he spoke again his memories of Claire still claimed him.

  “She used to love this little garden. She loved the small, scented flowers—the little English flowers that were so different from her South African favorites. Do you remember what she used to do when we came here?”

  Susan did not remember. She could not recall ever having been in this place—except perhaps for Sir George Grey, who had looked vaguely familiar. Strange the things a child’s memory retained or rejected.

  Her father went on. “In those days we both had our vision. But Claire liked to play a game when we came here. She would cling to my arm and pretend she was blind. I would lead her about and she’d bend her pretty head toward the flowers to catch their fragrance. Then she would identify the scent, and nearly always she was right.”

  There was a tightness in Susan’s throat, and she could not speak.

  Her father went on, recalling a younger Claire than Susan could remember, and the note of affection in his voice was surprising. Always Susan had thought of Claire as running away from a man who had hurt her and did not love her.

  “Why did she leave South Africa?” she asked. “What was she escaping from?”

  He answered her indirectly. “We must remember that your mother was a fragile person. Her wings were easily bruised and she could never bear unhappiness. She would have crumpled under the strain of what happened to me.”

  “But you must have needed her then,” Susan said impulsively. “How could she bear to leave you at a time like that?”

  He turned the blank surface of his dark glasses toward her as if in inquiry, as if her words surprised him. But he said nothing and she knew he would give her no answer. With his cane he began to draw blind patterns in the earth at his feet and the silver knob shone in the sunlight, catching Susan’s eye.

  “I’ve noticed your cane,” she said. “It’s very beautiful.”

  He held the head of it toward her. “It was given me by friends some years ago. Do you see the enamel embossing on the silver?”

  She took the cane from him and studied the raised symbols on the head and saw that they represented the three flags of South Africa. One the Union Jack of the British Commonwealth, one the flag of the Orange Free State, the third the vierkleur, the old flag of the Boer Republic. When she gave the cane back to him he traced the embossing with a forefinger.

  “Three flags are not one flag,” he said enigmatically, and she wondered which he favored.

  He leaned upon the cane to rise from the bench and she stood up beside him.

  “I mean to walk over to the flower market—would you care to come with me?” he asked.

  “I’d like to,” she said. “But before we go, may I take a picture of you here?”

  He did not mind and she asked him to move about as he would if he were alone. For the first time she had seen in him something to which she could respond, and she sought for it in her picture. When it was taken, she went to walk beside him and drew his hand gently through the crook of her arm as they moved together toward the street.

  “Would you have gone to the market alone, if I hadn’t come by?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I come here two or three times a week. First I visit the shop, and then Thomas leaves me for a while in the garden if the weather is fine. When I’ve sat in the sun long enough, I walk over to Adderley and there is always someone to help me through traffic. I prefer to get about by myself as much as possible.”

  When they reached the curb he felt for it with his cane and stepped down without hesitation. His sense of hearing had been intensified by his loss of sight and he seemed aware of the nearness of any person or moving object in an astonishingly sure way. As they crossed to the right side and followed the old-fashioned street with its elderly buildings and busy modern traffic, Susan asked him about the visitor in his house.

  “Has Mr. Cornish moved in? Have you had any talks with him yet?”

  “He has moved in,” Niklaas said. “And I’m glad to have him under my roof and within easy reach. At the moment I’m afraid we’re sparring and wary of each other. We’ve not been able to come together on the matter that interests us most. However, I’ve filled him in a bit on my early life—when my first wife and your half-brother Paul, who was his friend, were alive. On all this past history we are in accord.”

  It seemed strange to hear about these people whom she had never known—Paul, who was in school in England much of the time when she was small, and later in the war, never to come home. She listened with interest as
they approached the arcade opening off Adderley Street, where the flower market occupied the center of an alley a block long.

  Down the length of this arcade a double row of tubs and containers were set high on stands, revealing an almost solid bank of brilliant blooms. There were irises and poppies, tulips and jonquils. There were carnations and roses and cornflowers. And of course the exotic blooms of South Africa as well—flowers Susan had no name for. Along the outside aisles moved housewives and tourists, old gentlemen and young girls, all making purchases. Brown-skinned women stood amid the riotous color, urging their wares upon the customer, each calling attention to her own more superior blooms.

  Niklaas van Pelt stood still for a moment at the entrance, breathing deeply of the fragrance. A nearby colored woman called him by name and began to speak to him in Afrikaans. He smiled and shook his head.

  “We always play this game,” he said to Susan. “They know very well that I will make a circuit of the entire market before I select what I want, but they always try to coax me to buy before I am ready. Come, let’s see what they have for me today.”

  As he moved along the row with Susan at his side, a middle-aged woman, whose waistline bulged above her checked apron, spoke to him in greeting and reached out her hand for his cane. As she touched it, Niklaas gave it readily into her keeping. Apparently he wanted both hands free now and had no need for the cane in this restricted area. The woman placed it out of the way beneath her flower stand, and as they moved on down the row the flower buckets themselves seemed to guide her father along.

  Once he put out his hand and held them above a great basin of marigolds, not quite touching them. It was as if he sensed the mass itself and would do the delicacy of a flower no harm by touching so much as a petal. Often he bent closer to breathe an individual fragrance and there was a quiet enjoyment in him that Susan found moving to see.