Yesterday's Promise

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Is it my fault men prefer to dance with me? If I’d known last week that old lady Willowby would be there spying on my every move, I would have stayed home and not even bothered going to the silly old Company ball, anyway.

  Arcilla swished her fan with renewed vigor. Now there was gossip buzzing in all the social circles, saying she was “carrying on” behind Peter’s back. She chewed her lip. If Peter ever found out…

  There was also Captain Retford. At Peter’s request the captain had been removed from regimental duty and sent to work as his personal assistant in an administrative capacity. Arcilla moved uncomfortably on the carriage seat. Was it her fault he was terribly handsome and that Peter often used him as her personal guard when she had business of her own to attend to about Capetown? But today she had refused his escort, knowing that idle tongues were already wagging and that Sir Julien was furious with her conduct. But she was growing tired of the expectations placed on her by her uncle. Oh, to be free and home again at Rookswood with her indulgent Auntie Elosia, and her preoccupied father, Sir Lyle. At least they allowed her to live her life as she pleased.

  But naturally, the gossip was all a pack of lies. Well…almost all. It was just that they didn’t understand her, these hard-nosed ladies in black. And they most certainly didn’t understand her constant need to be flattered. And Peter was always gone—and when he was home with her, his attention was on matters that bored her to tears.

  “You weren’t this stuffy in London,” she had accused him.

  “The honeymoon, my dear, is over. It is time to settle down and be about our work. What you need, Arcilla,” he said tenderly, “is a baby…”

  “I don’t want a baby! I want to dance and go places and have lovely people around me, the way it was in London. I want to go home!”

  Peter had looked at her bewildered, worried, and then had clumsily tried to make her “happy” for the evening by talking about how brilliant Cecil Rhodes was for wishing to bring all South Africa under the sceptre of Her Majesty. Arcilla had thrown a book at him, then raced up the stairs to their room and locked the door. The next day he had left with Parnell for Kimberly after receiving a message from Rhodes.

  Those women…the old cats! They were jealous, that’s all, because they were all getting old and wrinkled, and men like Captain Retford didn’t look at them with interest any longer. They had little else to do but make her life miserable here in Capetown.

  She swallowed an unladylike chortle. Imagine! That old dowager Jane Willowby daring, yes, daring, to come to Sir Julien on the matter. Arcilla felt her face turn warm over the humiliating memory of Colonel Willowby’s wife coming to Cape House to talk with Sir Julien about the “untoward behavior” of his London niece.

  “I do believe, Sir Julien, that the girl, married though she be, is young and willful. She needs an older, more sensible woman to keep an eye on her. I only mention this for her own good.”

  And then the final veiled threat. “I should hate to trouble Lady Elosia Chantry back in England. Elosia has been such a good friend of mine through the years that I wouldn’t want to bring her worry unless it became quite necessary…”

  Arcilla snapped her bright red fan open and closed. She didn’t want to bother Elosia, indeed. Why, I’ll wager she can hardly wait to write her, filling Auntie’s mind with all kinds of silly lies.

  And now! Worst of all, Uncle Julien had called her into his office yesterday morning and lectured her on her “untoward behavior.” She had bridled, a grave mistake when it came to Julien. He instantly became angry. Once he mistakenly called her “Katie.” Who was Katie?

  “I’m bringing you to Kimberly,” he had said, standing and lighting a cheroot. “You can join Darinda there at the house. I’m already making plans with Peter to send him to Rhodes’s new colony. He’ll be assistant commissioner to Dr. Leander Jameson, Rhodes’s partner. And as Peter’s wife, you are going with him.”

  He looked at her with that one eye of his, so cool and impervious to argument. “I’ve no time to play mother hen, Arcilla. Politics and power are at stake here. Peter cannot afford to have his young wife carrying on with other men behind his back.”

  “Lies! The old biddy lied—”

  “Whether she exaggerated or not matters little to me. The problems for Peter remain the same. I have important plans for him, and it’s crucial you do nothing to offend the wives of important men who can make it possible. Believe me, they wield more influence over their husband’s decisions than anyone cares to admit. If they think Peter’s wife is a tart, he will suffer for it by losing positions that are key to South Africa’s future.”

  “Have you told any of this to Peter?”

  “No—not yet. And I won’t need to if you make up your mind to cooperate. Thankfully for you, he’s in Kimberly, and gossip is slow to reach him.”

  “I won’t go to Kimberly. And I certainly won’t go to the new colony and waste my life fighting insects and enduring heat and savages. I’m going home to London.”

  She had turned to flounce from the room when his words stopped her.

  “You will not go home to London. You will do as I say, Arcilla.”

  She wheeled in surprise, and the look on his hard face froze her to silence. For the first time since she had married Peter and come to Capetown, she was afraid.

  “You are a grown woman. You are married to Peter, and with Peter you shall go. You will be leaving with me for Kimberly in a few days. See that your bags are packed. Plans are being discussed for an expedition north. I won’t have him burdened by your tantrums. Just remember, he needs you.”

  Needs me? Peter hardly knows I’m around. She shared nothing of his life. When he discussed things with her, he treated her as if she were a child, incapable of understanding anything of import regarding his plans for South Africa. Oh, she understood all too well! Only two weeks ago there’d been the deaths of some white farmers near Matabeleland. What would it be like deep into the north near the Zambezi River?

  Sitting in the carriage on the wharf, she shuddered at the thought. Oh, if only Evy were here, she could tell Evy anything. Though Evy was too religious, she did not condemn her friend. Evy knew the worst about her yet still remained a friend—like her brother Rogan.

  Rogan… Her hopes stirred to life. Rogan had always protected her, and he would help her now. She felt the same release that she’d felt after the wire arrived from Aunt Elosia.

  Auntie had wired Julien that Rogan would be arriving in Capetown on the H.M.S King George, due in Capetown around the fifteenth of July. Julien hadn’t been home when the Bantu delivered the wire, and she had confiscated the happy news and hushed it up all to herself, quite pleased that she had a secret Uncle Julien knew nothing about.

  Each morning she’d sent the Bantu down to the harbor to see if the ship had arrived. The ship was three days behind schedule, but yesterday the boy returned with a grin. The King George was anchored in Table Bay, and word about the dock area was that the passengers would disembark the next morning very early. Arcilla had slipped from Cape House unseen, and it seemed as though Providence was now like the wind at her back.

  She must convince Rogan to accept the offer Julien would make him to become part of the BSA—Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company. But she knew Rogan and Julien had been at odds for years, and she desperately feared Rogan would refuse.

  What can I do to convince Rogan to join Peter in the Company? There must be a way! She needed Rogan on that expedition north. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to suffer such a long and difficult expedition without the comfort of having Rogan along. Desperately, she wrung her Holland lace handkerchief, trying to think of a way to convince him to accompany them.

  She saw him nearing her carriage and opened her arms to welcome her favorite brother. “Rogan! This is absolutely too grand to have you here.” She broke into a tinkling laugh as he climbed in beside her, grinning.

  She hugged him, and he planted a kiss on her cheek. />
  “What’s this, little sister, drenching yourself in diamonds already?” His dark brow lifted with amusement as her bracelet flashed and her earrings sparkled.

  “They must weigh a ton. Is it safe?”

  “Peter gave me these diamonds”—she flashed them deliberately—“for my birthday last month.”

  “Where’s old Peter?”

  “Kimberly.” She laughed. “But it’s safe here. Don’t worry.” She thought of Captain Retford and blinked the memory away. No good to bring him up now. “My two Bantu boys are both loyal. They’d fight to protect me. But that’s not needed in Capetown. It’s that horrid trek north that frightens me, fraught with dangers and beasts and wild savages. Spiders, they say, as big as your fist. And snakes, black mambas and cobras…ugh.”

  He laughed at her. “My sister, always the little coward except when it comes to the real dangers. So how is my prestigious brother-in-law doing in the BSA?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing ails him ever. His work for Uncle Julien and Mr. Rhodes proceeds nonstop. And you, you naughty boy. You didn’t even send me a letter.”

  “Aboard that stuffy ship?” he grimaced. “It was all I could do to keep sanely occupied. How did you know I was arriving today, or need I ask? Elosia, I suppose.”

  “Yes, Auntie wired Julien a week ago telling him you’d arrive on the King George. He wasn’t there to receive the message, so I rallied to the cause. I’m glad Julien was away when the wire came, but he’s back now.” She glanced at him. “I didn’t think you’d wish to meet him here when you first set foot in Capetown.”

  “Brilliant, my little sister, as always. But he’s at Cape House now?”

  She nodded, and he looked concerned. “Don’t worry. No one saw me leave. I needed time alone to discuss things with you, just the two of us.” She saw his quick glance, searching.

  “Everything going well with you and Peter?”

  “It’s dreadful.”

  “As I suspected. How do you find his work?”

  “Totally boring. Oh, Rogan, I’m so glad you’ve arrived. I couldn’t be in a more horrendous situation than I’m in right now.”

  “Come, it can’t be as bad as all that. Any man who weighs his wife down with diamonds is bent on keeping her happy.”

  “Oh, you are joking.”

  “All right, what is it you’ve done? Stole the Governor General’s heart so every decent woman in town is after your scalp?”

  “How did you know—” She stopped as the corner of his mouth tipped downward. “But not the Governor General, silly. I’ve never met him. Well, I did meet him once at a ball, but he’s very old with arthritis in his knees, so he couldn’t dance. No, it’s that frightfully impossible dowager, Lady Jane Willowby.”

  “One of those…”

  “Yes! And she knows Auntie too.”

  “Worse luck.”

  “And she’s gone to Uncle Julien and accused me of absolutely outrageous things.”

  “None of which are true, I hope?”

  “Of course they are not true. She’s a gossipy old biddy, that’s all. Jealous and mean-spirited.”

  “Well, I can’t say what the woman is like, but knowing you, she may have a point or two.”

  “Rogan.”

  He smiled. “Cheer up. Whatever you’ve done should eventually blow over.”

  When she said nothing he looked at her, this time more gravely, as he must have realized there was more to the storm than her girlish pranks.

  “Or will it?” he asked quietly.

  She looked down at her lap and fussed with her fan. “Julien doesn’t think so. He’s threatened to tell Peter about things if I don’t fully cooperate with his wishes.”

  Rogan’s gaze turned into a hard glitter. “Best tell me all of it.”

  “It’s nothing, really. Just a passel of old black-gowned dowagers who went to Julien and demanded he talk to me about my behavior.” She looked at him and added quietly, “Oh, Rogan, I played the fool.” Her voice trailed to a whine as she saw his jaw tighten.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I went to the Government House Ball two weeks ago and went into the garden with Elizabeth’s fiancé, and…well, I didn’t mean to flirt, but I caught my skirt on those absolutely horrendous rosebush thorns an inch long, and I couldn’t pull it loose. So Thomas tried to help me, and then his shirt sleeve got stuck. We were both caught and standing quite close, and I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I was in his arms when Sally Horn came out and saw us. Oh, it was horrid! But I didn’t mean anything serious by it. Then she told Elizabeth, and Elizabeth slapped Thomas and—well, you do see how it went?”

  “Yes.”

  How could he say so much with one word? Arcilla plucked a crimson feather from her fan and dropped it on her lap. It ruffled in the wind. Rogan reached over and took the fan from her clutching fingers. She bit her lip to keep back tears.

  “And now I’m the topic at all the tea parties in town. The engagement is broken between Elizabeth and Thomas, and Lady Willowby has called on Julien. She’ll write to Aunt Elosia if he doesn’t do something.”

  Rogan was quiet, then said, “Peter doesn’t know?”

  She sniffed, shaking her head. “Not yet. He’s still at Kimberly.”

  “Arcilla, you were very unwise. You’ve Peter to think of besides yourself now. This isn’t London, and Peter isn’t the calm, unruffled Charles Bancroft.”

  “I wish he were Charles,” she murmured, taking a handkerchief and dabbing at her cheeks.

  “Enough of that. Regardless of how you feel, you are married now. A few more accidental forays into the garden with willing young gentlemen, and you won’t have a reputation to worry about. You’ll be like Anne.”

  She looked at him. “Anne?”

  He waved a hand airily. “What did Julien do about all this?”

  “That’s the worst part. He’s taking me to Kimberly soon, where Peter is, and he insists both of us are going north to the new colony. Rogan, it’s horrid. I don’t want to go, but I’ve no choice with Julien insisting, and I…I’m afraid of him.” She looked at her brother with wide eyes. She took some comfort in seeing a flash of anger in his dark gaze. Though he disapproved of her follies, she sensed the anger was not toward her, but toward Julien.

  Though she knew Rogan would not insult her, she took courage that he hadn’t threatened to disown her. It was so good to see him after all these months that Arcilla rushed headlong now to pour out all her woes about what Sir Julien had said concerning Peter’s promising career and his need for a prudent wife.

  “Julien should have thought about that before he insisted you marry Peter,” came Rogan’s blunt retort. “I warned him repeatedly that the marriage was all wrong.”

  She looked at him, suddenly offended at his frankness. She drew back against the seat. “You told Julien about me?”

  “Of course. Oh, Arcilla, don’t look so betrayed. You’re undisciplined and foolish at times, and your lack of discretion is known to both of us. So let’s not pretend. But now you’re a married woman, and there’s no changing any of it.”

  “Oh, I know all that,” she said hoarsely. Rogan could talk to her like this, and she didn’t find it as threatening or offensive as when Julien looked at her with his cold eye, or when the haughty face of Lady Willowby watched her at the ball with lifted silvery brow filled with judgment.

  “Then if you know these things, you must begin to grow up. You must think of your husband, too, not merely waltzing the night away under the Capetown stars taken with some handsome soldier.”

  “Thomas isn’t a soldier.”

  “Beside the point. And”—he gave her a dry glance—“Julien would hire pirates to capture the ship you were on before he’d allow you to escape to London. He wanted you to marry Peter for a reason: diamonds. And Peter’s family is extremely powerful in politics. Julien has definite plans for you and Peter, plans that will suit his own greedy purposes. Now, that’s no surprise, is
it? You knew as much from the beginning. We both knew.”

  Yes, she knew, only too well. Life in Capetown was far different from what she had expected. But things hadn’t seemed as dreadful back in England. She hadn’t wanted to come to South Africa, but Peter convinced her it wouldn’t be as odious as she had feared. But it was worse!

  She frowned at Rogan, but under his wry gaze, she broke into a smile and then laughed, an uncomfortable laugh. “Oh, Rogan, how well you know me. You and Evy, both. And how I’ve missed you. And Evy, too. I wish she were here now to lecture me. How is Evy, by the way?”

  He did not answer at once, and she gave him an amused, searching glance. “You have your own problems, I see.”

  “There are no problems,” came the smooth voice. “Evy was fine when I left Grimston Way, though Grace Havering died.”

  “Did she? How unpleasant for Evy. She’s all alone now.”

  “She has Mrs. Croft,” came his firm voice, as though he didn’t want to think otherwise.

  Arcilla thought it was because he did not want to worry.

  “Mrs. Croft, that dear old bastion of strength, is as much of an ‘Auntie’ as Evy could wish for. Evy also went back to music school. In fact, she’ll open her own school soon.”