Today's Embrace (18 page)

“Seems to me you're responding to this with exaggerated defensiveness. Which tells me there's something you wish to hide.”

“You want to know why I would want to hide anything?” She looked at him intensely. “It's your response I worry about. If you think I'm not well, you'll use it against me.”

“Against you? Is that how you see my love and concern for you? As
something selfish on my part that wants to deny you something good?”

She felt a pang of regret and guilt. She rushed toward him. “Oh, darling, no, that's not how I feel. I'm sorry …”

“Evy …”

She closed her eyes as his arms enfolded her warmly and his lips were on hers, fierce with passion and frustration. She clung to him.

“I love you,” she whispered against his neck. “Trust me, Rogan. Will you? Just trust me? I'm up to the voyage to the Cape. Believe me, I am. I'm strong. I've always been strong. Until the accident I rarely had a sick day in my life.” She looked up at him, her eyes pleading with his intense gaze. “If I didn't think I could handle the voyage and the trek to Bulawayo, I wouldn't insist on going with you.”

For a long moment she didn't think she had gotten past his armor. He looked at her, studying her carefully, until her lashes began to waver. Then he merely gave a nod of his dark head, and his arms released her slowly, as though she might sway dizzily.

“All right. You're asking me to trust you. I will. If you don't think I have a need to know why you saw Tisdale, so be it.”

She cringed inwardly.
Oh God, what has happened to me? I can't believe I'm doing this
.

“Of course you have a right to know.” She wet her lips. “It was the dizzy spells … He said it was—nothing. Too much excitement recently. Or maybe I wasn't getting enough rest.”

She walked slowly to the table where the glow of the candle seemed hypnotic. Her fingers on the back of the tall chair tightened convulsively. She winced at the long silence.

“I see.”

Did he? Did he see through her?

“I just didn't want you to be concerned, is all,” she murmured. Her appetite was gone. But if she didn't eat …

“I could easily have a talk with Dr. Tisdale.”

She stiffened her spine. That would be the end.

“But I won't,” came his quiet voice, surprising her with its ability to release her from its grip.

“Do you want to know why I won't go to him?”

“Because Dr. Jackson will be here tomorrow afternoon.” Her voice was tired.

“No, that's not the reason. I won't go to Tisdale because I respect you. I won't ‘spy' on you, as you stated a moment ago. If I went to him, I'd be saying I didn't trust you to tell me the truth.”

She shut her eyes.

“So we'll let it go,” he said. “If and when you care to share what's on your mind with me, you'll honor me with your trust. Until then, Evy, I shall respect your privacy. I'll gain nothing I want from our relationship by forcing you.”

Oh, how that hurt. How wonderfully mature he was being, and how poorly she was behaving—and she was the one who'd grown up in the rectory. What did that show except perhaps that only genuine faith and not religious ritual could change the heart, her heart? While Rogan had been the rascal, he seemed to be learning and maturing faster in the closeness of marriage than she.

She would make it up to him aboard ship. Yes, that was an answer. And once this was all over, she would never again keep anything back from him that concerned them both. She would do so just this once. It wouldn't do any damage ultimately to their relationship.

He walked up behind her, and for a moment she could sense his pensive stare. But he said not a word and pulled back the chair for her. She sank into it, her knees feeling shaky, as he went to his seat.

She avoided his gaze at first, trying to quell her emotions. She would say nothing more about her visit to Dr. Tisdale for fear of adding to her earlier defensive reaction. Actually, it was partly true that she'd gone to see Dr. Tisdale because of dizziness. And it was true he had mentioned she might not be resting adequately, and that too much excitement from their travels to Spain and Paris may be affecting her stamina. But … he had also said—

Rogan began to talk too casually about other things that had nothing to do with their immediate conflict, and slowly the tension eased, and her conviction began to ease as well.

She took a bite of the tender sirloin. What would have been simply delicious earlier was now absent of taste. Even the champagne seemed flat. Guilt did amazing things to the body … as well as the soul.

Soon afterward Rogan shared some of the dark news from Derwent's report. Another mine explosion? She remembered her grandfather Carl van Buren had also died in such an accident. At the time Carl was partners with Sir Julien Bley in what would turn out to be a rich diamond hole in Kimberly. That big hole was still producing diamonds today.

Evy could see how Mornay's death sobered Rogan. He told her his old French associate had, like the prodigal son, come home to faith in Christ before he died.

“You'll be pleased to know it was Jakob who influenced him.”

“Did he? How wonderful.” Somehow she felt connected.

“Derwent tells me Mornay left his gold to Jakob's missionary work.”

“Yes, so he wrote me. He left the Zambezi station with another medical couple in charge and went to Bulawayo.”

Rogan was watching her; she wondered why.

“So you did receive a letter from him.”

Evy should have known Elosia wouldn't omit that bit of news, not that Jakob's letter needed to be another secret. She explained, showing him the letter, relieved she could share it with him.

“Interesting how Jakob agrees with Derwent about something stirring at Bulawayo.”

She saw that Rogan was restive.

“More trouble?”

“Trouble, always. Trouble with the BSA … trouble with Uncle
Julien. You know about the Kimberly diamond and Lobengula's burial cave.”

“Yes. Does Derwent know about it?”

“He mentions it. Julien tried to hire an Uitlander familiar with the Matopos region to get up an expedition. If he does, it will light a fire under Lobengula's impis. They're already drawn as tight as a bowstring. Now there's a drought, and the Umlimo told them it was white man's doing—the result of Lobengula's death as well as the white man's rule. They believe we've brought a curse on their cattle and land … no surprise there either. The British are blamed for everything these days.”

She thought about that. “I wonder how it will affect Cousin Jakob's missionary work there.”

“It won't help any, not with their Umlimo warning them against the
English god
.”

It was as though they were satanically deceived. For centuries the tribes had been limited to nothing but dark ideas, resulting in spiritual bondage. Satan did not want to give up control over this people.

“If that isn't enough, the Zambezi gold mine has gone bust.”

“Oh no!” She was disappointed for him, not that it meant much to her, even though she shared his part of it. “So soon?”

“Too soon, if you ask me. But my geologist is sure.” He took a turn up and down the room. “A bit odd. I wouldn't have thought Henry's big gold find would have come up dead already. Mornay didn't either. That was the reason he wanted to go deeper.”

She knew not what to make of it all.

“Maybe the geologist is mistaken,” she consoled.

Rogan ran his fingers through his dark hair. “He is too smart to make a mistake like that. And I trust him; no deviltry on his part either. Makes me wonder about the map.” He looked over at his desk, where the map was carefully pinned out for study.

Evy, wishing to show that she was interested in matters that captured his interest, walked over to the desk and looked down at the old
map. She had never been much of a map reader. All the squiggly lines crossing here and there amid strange sounding names told her nothing. What did interest her were the symbols Henry Chantry had drawn. One was a great bird, another a lion, and then a baobab tree.

“What do these pictures mean?”

He joined her at the desk. “I wish I knew. Perhaps nothing at all. But recently I've been thinking otherwise. I doubt Henry wanted to pretty up the map with African symbols.”

“There's a message in them, you think?” The very mystery sparked her interest.

He leaned his hands on the desk, frowning down at the drawing. “I'm inclined to think so. That's another reason I'm anxious to return as soon as possible.”

She thought of the books he'd brought up from his father's library, all of them on Africa, its tribes, and tribal emblems.

“African tribal symbols often tell a story, and they generally use animals. I've been doing research on those drawings. That bird, for instance. Notice the way its wings are spread. It could be significant. It's the bird that holds my interest. What does the bird remind you of?”

She studied the drawing carefully. “At first I would automatically think of an eagle, or a hawk.”

“My first thought also, but not anymore.”

She was curious. “Some bird unique to South Africa?”

“What else could it be? Remember, the tribes have never been out of their own environment. So what is it that the Africans see in this bird?”

“First, I would consider which tribe.”

“Exactly!” He looked at her, a sparkle in his eyes. “The Zulu? Ndebele? Shona? Since Henry went to the Zambezi before the Zulu war, it could be any of the them, or even another group altogether …” He frowned again as he stared intently at the bird. “Someone familiar with the tribes and their lore might offer a bit of wisdom. I thought I'd have a talk with Dr. Jakob. He's been in that region longer than any of
us, including Mornay.” He gently rolled up the small map. “It will be easier now that he's at Bulawayo.”

She was excited and pleased. Jakob was becoming an important part of the venture.

“Don't forget Jendaya,” she told him. “Heyden thought she was still alive and wanted to see me. She, too, may be able to shed some light on the symbols.”

There was no enthusiasm in his gaze at the mention of Heyden, or Jendaya.

“But what do the symbols have to do with the gold mine going ‘bust' as you put it?”

“I've been thinking about it for some time now. Maybe we were just a bit lucky, stumbling onto a mine the way we did after reaching Fort Salisbury. Even back then, I wasn't convinced we'd found Henry's deposit … these symbols kept me wondering. There was nothing within several miles of the spot that even resembled the symbols. The tempting conclusion to come to at the time was to think they had no meaning.”

“But you no longer think so?”

“It's not like Henry to be duplicitous. He wanted me to succeed with the map. And the find has gone bust too quickly. Henry was convinced of something much more dramatic. Later on, Julien realized his error of not funding Henry's expedition. If Julien weren't obsessed right now with the Kimberly Black, he'd be breathing down my neck again. That also holds true for Rhodes. He wouldn't have bothered with me as he did, coming to my camp on the Limpopo River, forcing me into the Company to get his hands into such a small gold mine. No, they believed in something bigger, and so did my uncle.”

Evy knew that Rogan had always believed Henry had discovered a mammoth vein of gold back before the Zulu War of 1878. A lode so rich as to be on par with the historic discovery of Witwatersrand in the 1880s.

“There's more to Henry's map. And I've got to discover what it is.”

“Another trek?” She was uncertain how she felt about this sudden new possibility.

She had always understood he would go to the gold mine while she stayed and visited with Dr. Jakob, but Rogan was suggesting much more now, a trek that could become expansive as he resumed the search for Henry's secret—an expedition that could last many months, even a year. She felt her brows nipping together.

“Another trek like the last one may not be possible, or wise,” he said casually. “If the Boers take up their rifles, there'll be war. Even if they don't, Doc Jameson could act rashly on his own, and there may be no way to stop the killing. We'll all get involved. I don't see how it can be otherwise.”

“But Jakob is a missionary. Neither the British nor the Boers would attack his mission station,” she said hopefully. “Both sides are Christian.”

“In war very little is sacred, darling. I'm not suggesting either side would deliberately attack the station, but regardless, Jakob is bound to be in the midst of trouble at Bulawayo. If I bring you there and go off on a new expedition, you'd be left on your own. Jakob's a rough man, Evy, a just man who's used to doing without, an old bachelor. His mission on the Zambezi was little more than a few huts and a chapel. I've no reason to think Bulawayo will be much different.”