Elephant Walk (The Brigandshaw Chronicles Book 2)

by Peter Rimmer

  "I have absolutely no idea. In life we never find out what happens."

  The rest of Peregrine's life flooded out in the next three weeks. Barend thought he was hearing a man's confession, and without the knowledge of a priest, he kept quiet and innocent. At first, he thought the story had been for his benefit only, a way of making him go home by example. By the time the lion roared, heard by both Madge and Barend, Madge from the Brigandshaw veranda, Barend from his camp just short of Elephant Walk, he knew Patricia as well as any other person in his life. Twice, alone in the dark, he had found himself crying at the pointlessness of life. The old man's story made him think in ways he had never thought before. To him at twenty-three, life was endless, and here he had been listening to another life from its beginning to almost its end.

  The next day, Peregrine fiddled around, seemingly unwilling to journey the last part of his endless journey.

  "Why don't we go?" Barend said impatiently.

  "Manners, my boy. Always arrive at the right time of day. Sundowners are the answer. When the sun goes down. Then we shall join them. Joyous, oh joy, a cut crystal glass full of whisky. Now there is something to look forward to in Africa. Funny isn't it, how the last minutes are always the longest. We will do one last hunt, you and I. Our gift of food to the family. Then Clary and Jeff shall take me in state. Your steed below you. Knights of old, back from the Crusades. We will be welcome. Joy will flow. Be patient, Barend. You are almost home."

  They rode through the open gate of the stockade that had been built by Barend's father during the Shona rebellion of 1896, not long after Tatenda had disappeared from Elephant Walk. The two donkeys led the way, with the old wagon and Peregrine seated on the wooden bench, and Barend riding in behind on his horse. The dogs pelted across the well-kept lawns between the msasa trees, ready for whatever fight or fun befell them. Egyptian geese took off in honking fury for the river, up and over the other side of the wooden stockade. The sinking sun was only just beginning to redden in the western sky. It had rained shortly before, and the bush green and the russet foliage of the msasa trees were still dripping water onto the round flowerbeds below.

  Sir Henry Manderville heard the commotion from his potting shed, where he was inspecting the small, green seedlings that had not yet been planted out into the land. Not being a man to waste time when he was onto a good idea, Henry had been standing in the lands all day watching a gang of shirtless blacks in three groups, the first with Dutch hoes ridging the ploughed land, that otherwise would have been planted with maize corn, the second with hand trowels and green plants, the trowels opening the head of the ridge at intervals, so when the soil filled in again the roots were standing up untangled. The third group came along with buckets of water and sloshed each plant despite the probability of rain. There were enough seedlings to plant out two acres and Henry was well satisfied with his work and the planting instructions from Cousin George in Virginia. The barking dogs reminded Henry it was almost time for his well-deserved drink. He went into the house to wash his hands before joining his family on the veranda of Emily, Madge and Harry's house; the guests, Robert and Lucinda would come across from the house that had been built by Tinus Oosthuizen, Barend's father, and left vacant when Alison and Katinka went south to search for the son who had run away in 1904.

  When Henry had washed his hands in the bathroom that boasted hot and cold running water, and one of Mister Crapper's flushing toilets, he moved into the only bedroom in his small house to change his shirt. Outside, his granddaughter Madge was picking flowers for the main house where he was about to enjoy his drink when she dropped the cut flowers and the scissors on the grass and began to run. All Henry could hear was the dogs' commotion, his view of the matter plain to Madge but blocked to him by the wall of his bedroom. Going to the window, he leaned out as far as he could to see Madge running past Clary and Jeff with old Peregrine waving his hat in the air while standing up precariously on the box section of the wagon. Then a good-looking horse walked into view with a broad-shouldered blonde stranger sitting high on its back who was leaning down to hoist his granddaughter up behind onto the horse's rump.

  "Hey," he shouted in desperation, thinking the man was snatching his granddaughter, and about to turn the horse's tail and bolt out of the compound through the open gate.

  Ducking back into his bedroom, he ran through the house and out of the front door, to find Madge clinging to the back of the stranger who was riding forward with a big, somehow familiar grin on his face. Everyone else was coming out of the houses including the house servants, grinning from ear to ear.

  "What's going on?" he demanded.

  "It's Barend," shouted Madge. "Barend's come home."

  The festivities carried on well into the night. Peregrine the ninth had been taken off by Henry Manderville for delousing which Peregrine thought quite unnecessary; anyone who lived with him was quite welcome; he had never once seen a bedbug Henry was so determined to exterminate. But like any good guest singing for supper, he went through his paraffin laced bath, and appeared fresh and scrubbed in a smart white shirt and khaki shorts that only hid his old, knobbly knees when he stood up. It was too hot for the long socks, so there he was on the veranda in his old, faithful sandals with an endless glass of whisky. To keep up the charade, he allowed himself to totter to the back of his wagon when the grandfather clock in the dining room, he could see through the veranda window, struck one o'clock in the morning. He even did his head-first dive onto the prepared mattress and snored immediately to get rid of Henry who was just as drunk. Peeping through a tear in the canvas, Peregrine watched him walk into one of the msasa trees, swearing profusely and reach the safety of his one-bedroom house by the light of the moon, followed by a loud crash from inside that Peregrine wondered about. Satisfied by one of the better whisky drinks in his life, lying on his back and listening to all the night sounds of Africa he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  Emily, Harry's mother, had been the first to go to bed, determined herself to ride into Salisbury the next day to send a cable to Alison, Barend's mother, her heart soft with the pleasure she knew her words would bring.

  Alone in the house they would now share with Barend, Lucinda convinced Robert St Clair there was no point in her brother staying longer at Elephant Walk. She had never seen anyone shine with so much happiness, and hoped it would last for Madge, but she wondered. Nine years away was a long time. They were both grown-up, no longer children, even if she herself still remembered the crush she had had on Harry Brigandshaw when he first arrived with her brother at Purbeck Manor in Dorset. She was now going to be a spinster for the rest of her life. There were no more feminine tricks she knew to play on Harry to draw his attention.

  Barend had basked in the centre of attention all night and told them selected stories from his travels, forgetting the oath of vengeance he had taken on the kopje overlooking the old Anglo-Boer War battleground at Paardeberg. There was no mention of Maria Pottier, the first of many women who had shared his bed. No mention of the many men who had shared with him his hatred of the English. No mention of the Mansion House in Johannesburg, or his fight with the English men that had given him so much satisfaction and sent him running out of Johannesburg. After months with Peregrine, his English had returned to full fluency and he was the man they wanted him to be. The prodigal son who had come back to them. Twice he retold the death of the Great Elephant that Harry had once hunted and how it had stopped his wish to hunt big game forever. They drank and ate and talked and laughed. On the surface, all was well and the drinks helped. Madge had changed from the girl in his dreams to woman, twenty-one years old. They tried all night to remind each other of their childhood together and kept up the smiles. Madge was the last before Harry to go to bed. Barend was even a little relieved to be left alone on the veranda with Harry, the pretence left alone for the night. They took their drinks out into the night where clouds were scurrying across the moon. Peregrine was snoring from his wagon
, Harry's grandfather from his house.

  "They are both going to have sore throats in the morning," said Harry.

  "Yes they are."

  For a long while, they were silent, each with their thoughts.

  "You'll have to start all over," said Harry at last. He had drunk himself sober but knew he was going to have a hangover in the morning. "She was a kid. Now she's a woman. Give her time… We can either split the farm or farm Elephant Walk together… You think grandfather's tobacco might work?"

  "You'll have to build a curing barn to find out. Before the plants mature. I'll look at Cousin George's plans tomorrow."

  "It's already tomorrow."

  "I've something to show you that might change all this and I need your help. We'll have to go back inside."

  "I'm a bit older than you, Barend." He spoke softly so no one in the house could hear what he was saying. There were often people lying awake, thinking. "You can't make life do what you want to do. I won't ask you why you came home. Those years are your business. Glad enough to have you back. Hard as I've tried, I can't imagine myself married to Lucinda, pretty as she is. I saw my parents as you did. Your father and mother to begin with. That was love. My mother's and father's would have lasted forever. Maybe it will. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, is all I'm saying. Now, show me what you've got."

  "Do the dogs always follow you?" asked Barend.

  "Even in their sleep."

  They were still talking diamonds when the sun came up in the morning and the new day began.

  "Do you hate us very much?" asked Harry.

  "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "The English. The people who hanged your father."

  "How do you know?"

  "We grew up together. Men hate for good reasons. I rather think I would have hated the same as you."

  "It's not as bad as it was."

  "I'm glad of that. The human race has made a bloody mess of it ever since we can remember. And I rather think it's going to do it again, only worse. There's going to be a terrible war in Europe. A world war, I think, because everyone on earth is going to be affected."

  "Yes, I know."

  "The Germans you hunted with?"

  "They are very confident they can destroy the British Empire. Create their own. They are jealous of you. And if they can't have it themselves, they'll destroy what you have built, and enjoy your destruction. People don't like other people to be richer than themselves. Or other nations. The powerful stay rich or the new lords become the powerful. Your Mr Darwin. The evolution of man. Both of us are products of the fittest surviving, or we would not be sitting here looking at seven rough diamonds I have been unable to sell… Old friend, it's time I found a bed before the rest wake up."

  "I'll show you the way."

  "It was my house, you know."

  "There's a spare bed in my room for George when he's back from school. You don't snore, do you?"

  "Not that I know."

  "The bed's made up. Hell, it's good to see you again."

  "Madge said we were going to marry each other when she turned sixteen."

  "Maybe you should have done."

  "Would it have worked?"

  "Everything works to some extent… Take a tall glass if you want of water for your hangover. There's a jug of drinking water in my room… Stop speculating. No one knows what's going to happen in this life which is often just as well."

  Neither of them mentioned the diamonds the next day as both were feeling sorry for themselves, swearing they would never drink alcohol again in their lives, knowing they would both break the oath when the sun went down which they did. Robert thanked Barend for the use of his house for so many months and said it was now time to go back to England and teach small boys the vagaries of history. Emily made the perfunctory effort to change his mind but when she left in the trap for Salisbury to send her cable, Robert came along to book a passage for himself and Lucinda and use the return half of the tickets. Tembo, who had been at Elephant Walk most of his life, took the reins. Behind him, the passengers were quiet all the way to the new capital of Southern Rhodesia. Emily had finally told Barend she was sending a cable to his mother and sister.

  "They'll be coming back," she said to him.

  "We all have to start again somewhere. Just please tell my mother, when she does arrive, some things I can't explain. Or more correctly, I don't wish to explain."

  "Harry says he understood. So did my husband. We all lost part of ourselves when your father was hanged. Just don't please take it out on your mother, Barend. We are your friends, not your enemies."

  When her brother left in the trap, Lucinda had gone off down to the river on her own, where she had a good cry and felt better. She even saw how silly it was to wallow in self-pity. Life for her in Africa was not meant to be. She was going home. That was it. The years ahead looked long and dreary but they still had to be lived. "I should be thankful for what I have," she told herself, wiping her eyes. She thought of her home that had been her family's for hundreds of years; she thought of her family. For the first time in months she was homesick. When she came through the back gate into the stockade she was smiling. Three of the Egyptian geese waddled in behind her. She could smell meat cooking over the open fire. Having missed their breakfasts, Harry and Barend were cooking chops over a fire in a large metal drum that had been cut in half and partially covered with a wire mesh. If nothing else from Africa, she told herself, she would remember that smell for the rest of her life. She waved at them and crossed to the main house to look for Madge, not wanting to catch Barend looking at her again. Robert was right. It was time they went home before truly outstaying their welcome.

  Across the grass, some hundred yards from the cooking chops, in his small cottage, Henry Manderville was drinking tea with Peregrine the ninth. The last of the tobacco seedlings had been planted out in the lands, and Peregrine had been taken to look at the hapless plants, the six-inch leaves flopped over in the sun. To his surprise, some of yesterday's plantings were perking up at the centre. He had made all the right noises about a splendid idea and a splendid opportunity, secretly thinking the baronet was wasting his time. Under his breath he had said, 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', and wished him luck.

  "You'd better stay here," said Henry Manderville.

  "What you mean, old chap?"

  "What I said. You can't roam around any more. You're too old."

  "I'm only seventy-one."

  "That's my point. I'll build you a rondavel next to the potting shed with an attached bathroom. If you're very good I'll put in a flushing toilet. Clary and Jeff can go out to pasture."

  "I haven't a bean."

  "Oh yes you have."

  There was a long silence while they slurped at their tea, something they would never have done in front of the ladies.

  "Do you know? How long have you known?" asked Peregrine.

  "Quite a few years. Your business is your business. When your father died they must have sent investigators to every English-speaking country. You'd been gone into the bush for months. I heard about it shopping in Salisbury. They had a missing persons post up in the post office. Did you know your father was dead?"

  "Yes. I read a piece of old newspaper. Strange coincidence. Harry had the paper wrapped around his glassware to stop it breaking when we went on our wild goose chase… Do you think I should have gone home?"

  "You're probably better out of the way. Why you should stay here. I can keep an eye on you. You might write and tell them."

  "No Henry. I've done that in a way. Gave Barend a letter to post to the family solicitors when he hears I'm dead, or after two years whichever comes first… If I'm to stay here I'd better get some money from them," he said as an afterthought.

  "Don't be silly."

  "I'll leave a bit to Em in my will. You can keep the second letter for the solicitors… You think those two will get married?"
<
br />   "No, I don't. But you never know… So that's settled."

  "Thank you, Sir Henry."

  "You are very welcome, Lord Pembridgemoor. You see, there's method in my madness. Over our drinks at night you can tell me your life story. What you got up to. Why you ran away. Should keep us amused for months."

  "Her name was Patricia."

  "Good. I only ever loved one woman. Emily's mother, who died so young. Did she die, Perry?"

  "I don't know."

  "That makes it worse in some ways. Not knowing. What might have been."

  "What was that crash last night?"

  "Didn't you pass out on the mattress?"

  "No I didn't."

  "I fell over the bloody cat… And don't laugh."

  The next day, while the old were putting their lives into perspective, Peregrine, exhausted from all his years, the young were planning a future. Harry and Barend had taken with them shotguns for protection but more as an excuse to get out of the house and talk about what was on both their minds.

  "If father had not been killed I would have used my geology degree," said Harry when they were alone in the bush still wet with another short shower of rain. The main rains from Mozambique had yet to break. "I had the romantic idea as a kid to go off with a pick and shovel and find my fortune in them yonder hills. Why most prospectors find nothing. You have to use science. You have to have a method. Know where you are going for a reason. As Uncle Peregrine rightly told you, a railway worker found gem diamonds at Kolmanskop in 1908, and the Germans locked up the area under tight security, having worked out the gems had come down the Orange River, probably from the Kimberley pipe exploited by Cecil Rhodes three hundred odd miles from the mouth of the Orange. We even know the diamonds are three million years old. I keep up with geology. My prof sends me papers from Oxford he thinks will interest me. Everything that's written about Africa. So I know as much as anyone about the diamonds on the coast of German West Africa."

  "I found my stones hundreds of miles to the north of the Orange."

  "That's where science comes in. We are talking millions of years to shift the stones from the Kimberley pipe. Over millions of years the rivers change their course."