Shadows & Lies Read online

  “Nothing of the sort, I hope! Things have been allowed to come to a disgraceful pass, that I’ll grant you, but one day the Home Government might begin to see the sense of sending out a force to put them in order. Let’s pray their shilly-shallying won’t mean the decision comes too late.”

  “Well, that remains to be seen,” opined Mr Crowther, who could never be described as an optimistic man. “One thing’s absolutely certain – we can’t let go of our suzerainty.”

  Suzerainty, another unfamiliar word that had entered out vocabulary lately. Translated, it meant that we had first seized power from the Boer republics and then, in return for their help against the Zulus, had given them concessions to rule themselves independently – with the proviso that they were still under British sovereignty. This conditional restriction had rankled for years. The Afrikaners had never really accepted the loss of their full independence.

  “Why can’t we let them have their freedom?” I heard myself ask suddenly. “They founded the republics, after all. Those Uitlanders have no need to stay, if they don’t like it – but I suppose they’re making too much money to get out.”

  They were all used to my sharpness and knew it meant very little – it was just the way Hannah was: outspoken, the same way Lyddie was headstrong and impulsive. I did, on the whole, try to curb my tongue, though. I must not lose my reputation for common sense in return for being seen as a vinegary old maid, like Miss Lumb, who made our dresses.

  “A bargain’s a bargain,” said Lyddie’s father. “When I give my word to a man and put my name to a document, I don’t renege on it the moment it suits me. Why should we allow them to do so?”

  “At one time I was of your mind, Hannah,” added Lyall. “Independence for the Boers – until I found that license was all they wanted and understood by the word.” He became eloquent on the subject: these Uitlanders had made their money, right enough – some of them counted their fortunes in millions, and included amongst them was the prime minister of Cape Colony, a man called Cecil Rhodes, an ambitious Englishman who’d reached that office before he was forty, after buying up other men’s diamond claims and forming the vast de Beers mining company, besides having an enormous stake in the country’s gold mines. The Boer rule in the Transvaal, however, was incredibly harsh in every way, but the Uitlanders’ biggest grievance of all seemed to be that, despite all this and the exorbitant taxes they were subject to, they were not yet enfranchised. When it came to being unable to vote, on top of having to dig so deep into their pockets, they were understandably in a fighting mood – and demanding intervention by the Home Government.

  “Opinion’s fast gaining ground,” said Lyall, “that it’s time to show the burghers they can’t do just as they like – that if Kruger’s overthrown, that’ll be the end of the troubles …but Kruger’s stubborn as an old goat and he and his Boers aren’t so easily dismissed as all that.”

  “That’s what our history master, Mr Temple, thinks,” put in Ned, pausing long enough in the serious business of eating to interject a remark. “He says it’s high time we kicked Brother Boer all around the Transvaal and booted him out. Pass the bread and butter, please, Lyddie.”

  Lyall smiled rather grimly. “Your Mr Temple might find we’d bitten off rather more than we could chew if we did – I’ve had many years of dealings with ‘Brother Boer’ and it’s easy to underestimate his obstinacy, not to mention his ability to fight. They’re an uncouth lot, only half civilised, for all their bible-punching – hang me, if I wouldn’t sooner have a Kaffir than a Boer – but make no mistake, they’d be a hard nut to crack.”

  “Well, it seems to me one side’s as bad the other, and I call this ‘intervention’ nothing more than meddling in their affairs,” I said. “Their independence seems a little price to pay to avert a war.”

  There was a small silence. “Hannah Mary, quite contrary,” murmured Ned, under his breath but loud enough that his mother heard him, so he said no more, only winked at me to show me he meant no malice. I knew he was just ribbing. Ned and I were the best of friends and although he was a couple of years younger than me, he always took my part.

  The family were used to Lyddie and me expressing our opinions on topics of the day, though I sometimes wondered if Mr Crowther had regretted leaving the care of his young ladies to a graduate of Newnham college with views that were not always meek and womanly. On the other hand, Yorkshire folk were plain spoken and women were no exception to that.

  “War, Hannah?” he asked now. “Who’s talking of it coming to war? That would cost the country a pretty penny, and no mistake!”

  He seemed less upset at the thought than might have been imagined, the alarming prospect being somewhat modified, I supposed, by thoughts of the millions of yards of khaki cloth and army blankets that would be needed in such an event.

  “You’re right,” said Lyall, “I don’t subscribe to the idea that war’s inevitable, either, but if — if it should come, I believe it would in any case be confined to the Transvaal and the Free State.”

  A look passed between Mrs Crowther and her husband, for from all we heard, north of the British Bechuanaland border, across the Limpopo, was not the safest of places, either. Cecil Rhodes, among his other ambitions, had grandiose plans for the expansion of white supremacy in South Africa and beyond; a strong desire to see the British flag planted, in fact, right over the African continent, but this did not seem to be a view universally shared by the black people in those countries he had annexed. The previous year, a war had broken out, when some tribes thought Rhodes had cheated them over an agreement to mine gold on their land. White people had been massacred and pioneer settlers in outlying farms had been murdered in their beds. The rebellion had eventually been put down, their leader, Lobengula was dead, but if one was to believe all one read, that would not be the end of it. The battle was over but the war was not yet won.

  So, between the warring black tribes in the north, and Kruger and his Boers further south, Africa was not the most tranquil place on earth at the moment, and in view of all this, Lyall was wise enough to see that he could make no rash promises for Lyddie’s absolute safety. In all honesty, he was forced to admit that the situation remained volatile, but swore that Lyddie’s welfare would always be his prime concern.

  I saw that this attitude had met with Mrs Crowther’s approval. She sighed and looked from one to the other and though she said nothing just then, I sensed that Lyddie’s battle was won. Anyone who had Edith Crowther’s approval also had her husband’s. Lyall was showing himself to be an honourable and right-thinking, far-sighted man, much more than the dashing adventurer his family made him out to be. She quite clearly believed that, whatever turned out, they could entrust their daughter to him, and that Lyddie’s feelings in the matter should be respected. Though younger than Lyall by a decade, she wasn’t a young woman to give her affections lightly.

  All this talk of sweeping Lyddie away to an exotic, unknown country sounded to me very fine and romantic, despite the danger, and I was very happy for her that she’d found such a man whom she could love and marry, but I had my doubts about the civilised aspect of the sort of life she would be forced to lead (which in my ignorance and insularity, I then equated only with the availability of as many books as I could get hold of; with cultivated people and the museums and art galleries and such-like of which Rouncey had spoken so warmly) and I could scarcely conceal my dismay that their marriage would necessitate her going back with him to the other ends of the earth, to lead such an isolated and perilous existence.

  But Lyddie swept aside all objections and declared blithely that there were surely many worse places to settle, set up home and raise a family, she would soon make friends with the other expatriates in Bulawayo. I was sure she would. Everybody liked Lyddie, because she liked most people, and she was always so good-natured, she’d do anything for anybody, as her Aunt Lydia, for whom she’d been named, was fond of saying. But I looked at the vastness of Africa on the map an
d found that large areas of it, like the rest of the world, were indeed reassuringly pink. But oh! there were sure to be wild animals, mosquitoes and snakes and other unmentionable terrors. She might die of some unknown tropical disease. She could be killed in a way too horrible to contemplate by some black heathen. How could she survive? I realised on due reflection that this last was an unnecessary question. Lyddie was born to survive anything.

  I would have hated her to think me jealous, and so as the preparations for her wedding went ahead, we had a great deal of fun shopping for her trousseau. Apart from the sensible brown holland outfits of the sort Lyall had advised, and Miss Lumb ran up for her, Lyddie also managed to acquire quantities of pretty underclothes, shady hats and dresses in light silky materials with the new, narrow silhouette, drawn smooth and tight across the hips to fall in graceful folds behind —” Not an old-fashioned bustle in sight, Hallelujah!” she declared happily. Her mother tutted a little, but as Lyddie pointed out, the heavy coats and skirts with their leg-of-mutton sleeved jackets, the sensible shirtwaists and ties which were fast becoming almost a uniform here at the moment would surely be insupportable in all that heat.

  Mrs Crowther confessed to me privately that she was sure she was never going to see her only daughter again. But having weighed up the situation in her sensible, down-to-earth way, and come to the conclusion that denying her would cause only more unhappiness all round, she forbore to say this to her starry-eyed girl. Having come to terms with the idea that it was inevitable, she carefully packed up a thin china tea service, delicately painted with roses, that had been her own mother’s most cherished possession. She saw to it that Lyddie was equipped with a good supply of Carter’s Little Liver Pills, several tins of Benger’s Food, carron oil in blue bottles for sunburn, and several pounds of Lipton’s tea. Then she told Lyddie, “Go, and make a good man happy.”

  “And never forget you are a daughter of Empire,” advised Alderman Crowther, which made us giggle.

  For my part, I couldn’t help adding, “Oh, but how I shall miss you.”

  “But you have Willie, Hannah dear,” Lyddie reminded me.

  It was true enough that I, too, by now, had the interest of a young man – well, not so young, but young enough. He was called Willie Dyson and had already attained the coveted position of manager at the Crowther blanket mill. He still lived with his mother, and was good to her; he sang in the church choir, and he wished for an understanding between us. I knew I was very lucky, for he was a dear, good-living man, who always showed me great respect, and I reproached myself for wishing he were, sometimes, maybe rather more exciting, just a little less sensible, and that if I cast my lot in with him, my future life would not be so predictable.

  “Or there’s always Walter Beaumont,” she added wickedly.

  “Not even in jest, Lyddie!”

  For I might have looked higher than Willie Dyson, had I not been so choosy. I might have accepted the proposal of the new curate, who had a substantial private income and his sights set on a bishopric. He thought I should make a good wife for a clergyman – I was, after all, the daughter of one. But Walter Beaumont looked like a frog, and spittle collected at the corners of his mouth when he spoke, adding to the impression. And even his most ordinary utterances sounded like a sermon. No, I shuddered, if wedded bliss meant marrying the Reverend Beaumont, then single I would remain for the rest of my life. Even though, above all things in the world, I could imagine nothing worse than the fate of being an old maid, known as Poor Hannah to all the family.

  For more than anything, I wanted to know what it was like to love and be loved. To explore those mysterious, melting feelings that made me long to know how it would be to surrender oneself completely to another, to submit with a reckless intensity to the passion I dreamed of when I lost myself in my books and read of women like Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina.

  I did not somehow think that would happen with Willie Dyson.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lyddie was married to Lyall Armitage in November, and they sailed for South Africa immediately afterwards. The household seemed unbelievably quiet. Flat and empty. January was a particularly bad month, with a bitterly cold wind and, what with thick snow lying on the moors and nine-foot high drifts blocking the roads over the tops, we were confined to the house for much of the time. I wrote letters to Lyddie. I read anything I could get hold of. I wound up the gramophone and put on her favourite records, but there seemed no point to it, when there was no one there to sing the songs with me, or to practice dance steps with. I took up sewing, an occupation hitherto despised, and found that if I put my mind to it, I was quite good with my needle, and was able to copy some of those new modern dress styles Lyddie had bought, though they were hardly the sort of clothes Willie would consider suitable for his wife to wear, especially the one of beautiful, heavy peacock-blue silk made over from Mrs Crowther’s best frock, which she declared she would never fit into again. It was beyond my imagining, as I fingered the soft sensuousness of the material under my fingers, when I would ever have the chance to wear it. However, the dressmaking kept me occupied. I was rudderless, and longed for something to happen, yet I was wary of praying for it. God answered prayers, that I had never doubted, but not always in the way you wanted.

  Then came letters from Lyddie, full of excited accounts of their journey to Cape Town: concerts on board ship, dancing and entertainments every evening, dining at the captain’s table – there seemed no end to it. They had stopped en route at Madeira, a volcanic island rising straight from the sea, a miracle island of flowers and sunshine, where Lyddie had ridden up the steep paths to the very top on an ancient, but very steady and patient old cob, before thrillingly tobogganing down in a sort of basket sledge. Life so far had been nothing but fun, and she was making the most of it. As a new bride, she was feted and spoiled a little. Everyone was so kind. Her new dresses were much admired.

  At the end of February, a whole bundle of letters arrived at once, again full of amusing incidents and the surprises and excitements of her new life. Cape Town was a very fashionable place, modern and full of wealthy Uitlanders with mining interests in Kimberley and Johannesburg, with their big new houses and imported newfangled motorcars, and the newly-weds had stayed there to enjoy a giddy few weeks of social life before embarking on the long, tiring journey by train up-country, to the terminus of the great railway line which Cecil Rhodes was determined to drive right through the African continent, from Cape Town to Cairo.

  ‘The train journey was not exactly comfortable, but it was luxury compared to what we were about to endure. The railway is still not within five hundred odd miles of Bulawayo, and I was horrified that after leaving the train on the Bechuanaland border, we would have to make the rest of our journey by nothing less than a stage coach! Fancy, it was a great, heavy, lumbering thing that shakes you from side to side like anything, drawn by ten mules, which were very sorry-looking creatures, but better than an ox-cart, I suppose. When I saw the state of the roads (if such you can call the deeply rutted, sandy tracks, up the mountain and down again) I was forced to admit that anything else would have been impossible. You can see I have a lot to learn!! We stopped at night in primitive roadside inns, and saw much wild life on the way, lions and giraffes, a leopard once, and game birds there for the shooting. At one point, we came across at least twenty ostriches sitting down in the road and blocking the way, terrifying the mules who refused to budge an inch further until the native coachmen jumped down and chased the birds off. You should have seen them run! Such queer things, hardly a bird at all, it seems, since they’re taller than a man and have bald heads and big popping eyes, long thin necks and a very disagreeable expression. For all the world like Councillor Greenwood.’ We all laughed when we read this, and within the family, the manager of the local Co-op stores was forever afterwards known to us all as Councillor Ostrich. ‘It was very hot,’ she went on, ‘but oh, what a beautiful land this is, north of the border. Lyall promises even mor
e beauty when he takes me on what he calls a “safari”, further into the interior, where all is lush and green and teeming with wildlife, and there are spectacular views. As for my house here —well, it’s a dear little place, never mind its tin roof, and I’m determined to make it homelike. I’ve hung lace curtains and we ordered a piano and several other things in Cape Town, which are to be sent up to us and will make it more comfortable – though what condition they will be in when they arrive is hard to imagine — better than I was, I hope. My insides felt stirred up like Christmas pudding.

  ‘There was a snake in the garden yesterday. I hit it on the head with a spade that Jacob, our boy, had left against the wall, and killed it stone dead, though I am told I must never try to do this again, as it was just a matter of luck.’

  I put the letter down and poked my finger through the bars of the canary’s cage that hung in the window overlooking the same old view of the town spread below, the descending grey stone roofs against the dull green Pennine slopes, the grey skies and the tall mills shadowing the road through the valley, their even taller chimneys billowing out smoke. I stroked the bright yellow feathers of the little bird. He sounded happy enough in his cage, singing his heart out, year after year, but perhaps it was despair.

  For the next twelve months, Lyddie’s letters continued in the same cheerful, optimistic vein, full of her new experiences. My own went on in the same old predictable, routine way. I couldn’t yet bring myself to give my hand in marriage to Willie.

  And then, out of the blue, came horrifying news. The thing we had all dreaded had happened: a further rebellion, out there in the country which we were now told we must call Rhodesia, after Cecil Rhodes. Now, in a new outbreak by the concerted native tribes, the citizens of Bulawayo had escaped being massacred only by a strategic miracle. Lyddie and Lyall had lost their home and practically everything they possessed – but they had, thank God, escaped unharmed, by fleeing southwards, to the frontier town of Mafeking, on the Transvaal-Bechuanaland border, the big railway depot on the line from Cape Town, and consequently an important trading post.