Snare of Serpents (44 page)

When I discovered what had happened I felt sick with shock.

Mrs. Prost, who was in the garden, saw me and came up. She told me what had happened. It seemed that one of the boys, fishing near the Falls that afternoon, had discovered the body of the little deaf-mute in the water. The boy had immediately gone to tell Njuba.

“He’s been there ever since … just kneeling, staring into the water. It’s terrible. That poor child.”

“How could it have happened?” I asked.

“We wondered at the time,” said Mrs. Prost. “You remember how he disappeared. We thought he’d run away … and to think all that time he was lying there … dead.”

That afternoon stands out clearly in my mind. Whenever I smell the frangipani blossom I remember it vividly. I can see Njuba kneeling there on the bank. I have never witnessed such abject misery. When the men came to take the body away he was still there. Then he stood up, his hands clenched. He cried out: “This my boy. Someone kill him I will not forget.”

Luban took his hand and led him back to their rondavel and we heard lamentations all through that day.

It was true that the boy had been murdered. There was sufficient evidence to prove that he had been strangled even though he had been so long in the water.

“Who could have done this to a little boy?” demanded Myra.

“And why?” I asked.

“What terrible times we live in. Do you think it has anything to do with the war?”

“I don’t know. What harm could he do to either side?”

It was a mystery and for a few days people talked of little else. It was all, who did it? and why? That was a question no one could answer.

But when there was so much about which to be concerned, the mysterious death of a little native boy did not seem so very significant.

L
IFE MUST NECESSARILY
become more difficult as time passed. We knew we were all in acute danger. With the arrival of each day we wondered whether this would be the one when the Boers attacked the town. But the garrison had been strengthened just before the siege began; there were soldiers everywhere; it would be no light task and the battle would be fierce.

Lilias was as strong and practical as ever; and because of her growing friendship with John Dale, I did not feel that I was deserting her because I was so frequently at Riebeeck House. Myra needed my company more than she did.

I was getting to know Paul better. He was a pleasant boy and I sensed he rather enjoyed the dangers of living in a besieged
town. Danger to him meant excitement, which was preferable to dull ordinary living. He was learning to shoot, as many boys of his age were, but, of course, they lacked live ammunition, which was hoarded in case it should be needed for real battle.

I seemed to have become part of the household at Riebeeck House because I was so often there.

Mrs. Prost’s attitude towards me puzzled me a little. I was never quite certain of how she regarded me. There were times when I thought I was welcome and she was quite fond of me. At others she seemed to be regarding me with something like suspicion. This surprised me a little, for I should have said she was a predictable woman, with fixed ideas from which she would find it difficult to swerve.

She had an affectionate contempt for Myra. Nobody could dislike Myra. She was always thoughtful to the servants and never behaved with the slightest arrogance. She was as different from her mother as one person could be from another. She was gentle, inoffensive and likable.

I understood Mrs. Prost’s feelings towards her, but in my case her attitude seemed to sway between confiding friendship and a strange aloofness.

I discovered the reason for this one day and it was a great shock to me.

Myra was lying down, as she did most days, for she still tired easily, and Mrs. Prost asked me if I would go along to her sitting room.

I did so and when I was seated there I thought her manner decidedly strange. It was almost as though she were forcing herself to perform some unpleasant duty.

At length it came.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time, Miss Grey,” she said. “It’s been on my mind and I couldn’t decide what to do for the best.”

“Is it about Mrs. Lestrange?”

She pursed her lips and frowned.

“Well, it’s not really … although I suppose you could say she might be concerned.”

“Please tell me.”

She rose and went to a little chest in the corner of the room. She opened a drawer and took a handkerchief which she handed to me.

To my amazement I recognised it as one of mine. It had been given to me by my mother with six others. They all had my initials embroidered in a corner. I looked down at the
D
and
G
attractively entwined. Davina Glentyre. I flushed slightly, for into my mind had flashed a picture of Zillah. “It’s safe to use the same initials.” How right she was.

“It’s yours, isn’t it, Miss Grey?”

“Oh yes, it is. Where did you find it?”

“Well, that’s what upset me a bit. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time. You see, you’ve been so good to Mrs. Lestrange and I know she’s really fond of you. But when I found that …”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“I think you do, Miss Grey. Cast your mind back. It was the day … right back, you know. It was one of the times when you spent the night in this house. I found the handkerchief under the master’s bed.”

“What? How did it get there?”

I was flushing hotly while she looked at me, gently shaking her head.

“Now,” she went on, “I’m not one of these people who thinks everybody ought to live like monks and nuns when they’re not. I know these things can happen … men being men. But it’s different somehow with a woman.”

I stood up indignantly. “What are you implying, Mrs. Prost?”

“Now sit down, Miss Grey. I’m not exactly blaming you. The master is a very attractive man. He’s a kind man, but even kind men find their fancy straying, and it’s not in men’s nature to control that sort of thing. It’s different with a woman. She’s got to be a bit more careful.”

“What you are saying is absurd.”

She nodded her head. “I know, I know. The temptation comes and I must say he is a very good-looking man and he’s got all the charm you could wish for. And I know things are
not … well, what they might be with him and Mrs. Lestrange. Separate rooms and all that. But I just thought you ought to be careful. I just happened to glance under the bed to see if it had been swept. It hadn’t … and there was this handkerchief.”

“I have no idea how it came to be there.”

“Well, I thought I’d better warn you. When he comes back … and you being in and out of the house … and all that … just like family.”

“You have no need to worry about that, Mrs. Prost. There has never been anything of an intimate nature between Mr. Lestrange and me.”

“I guessed you’d take it like this. That’s why I didn’t say anything before. I’m not what you might call a prude. I thought it might have been just a slipup. These things happen. I’m not saying it’s very nice … but there it is.”

“I must insist …” I began.

“Well, I’ve said my say. It’s not my affair, but I think it could lead to trouble.”

“I keep telling you there’s nothing … nothing …”

“Oh, I suppose it got in there somehow. You never know, do you? But there it was … and I wouldn’t have liked anyone else to have found it.”

I stood up, still clutching the handkerchief. “Mrs. Prost,” I said, “I assure you that I had never been in that room until the night I slept there when Mrs. Lestrange was so ill and Mr. Lestrange had gone away.”

“Then if you say so, dear, that’s all right with me. I just thought I ought to mention it … because when he comes back … well, it wouldn’t be very nice, would it, for you or him or Mrs. Lestrange?”

“I see,” I said, “that you do not believe me.”

“Look. We’re good friends. That’s why I told you … warning you like. These things can cause a lot of trouble.”

“But I keep telling you …”

“All right,” she said. “I’ve said my say and that’s an end of the matter.”

But was it an end of the matter? Mrs. Prost believed that I
visited Roger Lestrange in his bedroom. I felt as though I wanted to run out of that house and never come back again.

As
SOON AS
I
ENTERED
the schoolroom Lilias knew that something had happened.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

I was silent for a few seconds, then I burst out: “I never want to go to that house again.”

“Riebeeck? What’s happened?”

“Mrs. Prost … she believes I have had a … relationship … with Roger Lestrange.”

“A relationship?”

“She found a handkerchief under his bed. It was the morning after I had stayed in the house when he was there, too. She drew conclusions.”

Lilias stared at me.

I said: “You don’t think … ?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s horrible, Lilias. She seems to think he is irresistible. It was awful. She kept saying she understood. I think that was the worst thing. And I think when she showed me the handkerchief I looked … guilty. It was one my mother had given me. It had my initials on it. And for the moment it took me right back. I had thought it best not to change my initials … whereas if I had changed them, she wouldn’t have known the handkerchief was mine.”

“Wait a minute,” said Lilias calmly. “There’s not much tea left, but this is the occasion to use it.”

Sitting talking to Lilias was a comfort.

“Do you think,” she said, “that someone put the handkerchief there?”

“Who? and why?”

“Someone who wanted to suggest that you had spent a night there.”

“Not Mrs. Prost.”

“No. There doesn’t seem much point in that. But suppose someone put it there for her to find.”

“It might have been someone else who found it.”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t have mattered.”

“What are you thinking, Lilias?”

“I don’t quite know. But someone in that house might have wanted to suggest that you and Roger Lestrange were lovers.”

“But why?”

“That’s all part of the mystery. How could your handkerchief have got into a room in which you had never been at that time, unless someone had taken it there?”

She was frowning and I said: “What are you thinking, Lilias?”

“I am not sure. Myra was there …”

“She was not well. That was the reason why I stayed.”

“She was a little strange, wasn’t she? Imagining things? Perhaps she wanted to prove something against her husband and you.”

“She is devoted to him and I think he is to her.”

“But she was seeing visions. Or did that come later? I’m just letting my thoughts run on. The fact remains that the handkerchief was there. It had to be put there. Then who … and more to the point … why?”

“I feel I never want to go into that house again.”

“If you don’t it might look as though you are guilty.”

“How could I tell Myra?”

“Stay away for a while and see how you feel. Something may occur to you. A handkerchief! It’s strange what trouble such insignificant objects can cause. Think of Desdemona. But try not to brood too much on it. I think there’s enough for another cup in the pot. We mustn’t waste the precious stuff.”

We had come to no conclusion, but it was, as always, a comfort talking to Lilias.

T
HERE WAS A FEELING
of desperation in the town. We knew that something had to happen soon. There was no actual talk of surrender, but the thought was in the air. No matter how strong the spirit, people could not live without food.

Nothing was coming in now. All through that stiflingly hot January we waited for news. We would hear the sound of sporadic gunfire which seemed to be getting closer. Occasionally a
shell hit the town and there were casualties. We lived with the thought that at any time we could be among them. All through those hot days death hovered over us. Familiarity made it easier to live with. I suppose we accepted it and it ceased to be uppermost in our minds.

All the same it seemed almost incongruous at such a time to be upset because a suggestion had been made about me; but it was constantly in my mind. Images suggested by Mrs. Prost’s conclusions kept recurring and there was always the mystery as to who could have put my handkerchief in such a place. It could only be that someone wanted to prove something against me.

Lilias, with whom I talked again of the matter, said I was making too much of it.

“You’ve suffered a great shock,” she said, “and you must be on guard against allowing yourself to imagine some evil fate is working against you.”

I knew that she was right when she said I was haunted by the past. I had hoped to escape it by leaving England. I knew as well as she did that there was no hope of a peaceful life for me until I had cut myself away from what had happened.