A Flower for the Queen: A Historical Novel (26 page)

“But soon it became clear that Schelling thought he should be getting more than just a flower in return for granting me passage back to England. I managed to fend him off by saying that only after we found the flower would I concede to his requests. I also said that I would not reveal the secret of how to keep the flower alive unless he first promised to cut Forster out of the equation so that I could be the one to deliver the flower to the King.”

“But there is no secret; any decent gardener could do it,” said Masson.

“I know that, but Schelling didn’t, and it was all I could do to keep him from pawing at me. He agreed and made all kinds of promises, but I think he suspected the ruse and I couldn’t afford to take the risk. I needed a new plan. Escape was the best one I could come up with.

“Soon after leaving the Cape, Willmer came back from scouting the trail and said that we were being followed. The next day, while we moved on, he circled around and saw you three. Schelling said that there was nothing that could be done other than to get to Two Rivers first. He decided that Willmer would ride back and check on your progress every so often to make sure that you had not tried to outflank us.

“But then, just before we arrived at the Xhosa village to arrange for a guide to Two Rivers, Willmer said that you had gone north and had decided to make your move. We set out immediately and didn’t stop until we reached Two Rivers. The Xhosa guide kept warning Schelling about lions in the area which had taken to hunting people, but he insisted on pressing on.

“When we arrived at Two Rivers, Eulaeus was already there and had explained the terms of the agreement to the chief. With the flower within reach, there was no way that Schelling could renege, so there and then, albeit grudgingly, he granted Eulaeus’s freedom.

“He asked Eulaeus what had happened to you, but Eulaeus simply said that your carthorses had become lame and that when you decided to turn back, he had run away and come to Two Rivers on foot.

“When Willmer found your drawing floating in the stream and went off to get you, I knew that would be my chance. I thought the fires would be the perfect cover under which to get away, only I didn’t count on having you two as passengers.”

“But,” interrupted Masson, “it’s a full month’s journey across a terrain that is treacherous, to say the least!”

“And I suppose you’ll be telling me next that a man does not survive alone in Africa?” The last part she said in a fairly recognizable impression of Schelling before huffing with disdain. “Please don’t tell me that you honestly believe that claptrap?” But the look on his face told her that he did.

“And I suppose you really think that your Doctor Thunberg is actually going to risk his life to come back for us?”

Masson became angry. Not because she had besmirched the name of his good friend, but because he knew that deep down he had suspected the same thing.

“And what about lions or buffalo? Or are you on special terms with them, too?” asked Masson acidly.

She gestured at the rifle that Masson had left leaning against the trunk of one of the assegai trees. “I think I can manage.”

Masson just shook his head in disbelief.

“Well, I got this far, didn’t I?” she retorted. “From being penniless and abandoned in Cape Verde, without even so much as ‘Dear Jane, awfully sorry about how things turned out! Yours sincerely, Sir Joseph-the-bastard-Banks’. I think I’ve managed rather well so far. It was only when you and your buffoon doctor friend showed up that things started to go pear-shaped!”

“Well, at least I know your name now. That’s handy, because if my ‘buffoon’ doctor and I hadn’t happened to come along, your epitaph would now be reading, ‘Here, in the middle of nowhere, lie the sorry remains of Mr Burnette, part-time botanist, part-time lunatic and a sad testament to the fact that even a woman cannot survive alone in Africa!’”

The look that Jane then gave Masson was worse than any blow she might have levelled at him with her fists. With her eyes burning black with rage, she turned and stormed off into the bush, her fury breaking a path through the foliage.

“Masson! Where are you?” Thunberg shouted while standing in the midst of the empty campsite.

It was not yet noon and Thunberg had been riding most of the night and was in no mood to be charitable. After looking around and finding the tent empty, he saw a path of trodden grass leading beyond the trees.

Cursing Masson for not having followed his instructions to remain at the camp until he returned, he followed the trail until he found Masson alone, looking up towards the horizon.

“There you are. I thought maybe you had decided to go back to the Cape without me,” Thunberg joked.

Masson spun round at the sound of Thunberg’s voice. “I was beginning to think you had deserted us.”

“Desert you?” Thunberg asked defensively. “Did you think I would just leave you alone with the most beautiful woman this side of the eastern frontier? I couldn’t have lived with myself knowing I had left her in such dull company.” Thunberg winked and the two of them shook hands.

“It’s good to see you,” Masson said, a little too earnestly. Thunberg sensed trouble.

“What’s happened? Did she thump you again?”

“Worse — she’s run off.”

“Run off? But where to?” Thunberg asked, completely floored.

“Oh, not far. She’s sitting up there. I’m afraid we fought, and I may have offended her.” Masson pointed to a lone figure seated on a slab of rock that was shaded by a pair of euphorbia as it projected out over the slope below, giving a panoramic view of the valley that lay beyond.

“Oh,
trés galant
, Mr Masson. Well, we’ve no time for lover’s quarrels; we’ve got work to do.”

“You found the horses?”

“Better than that. I may just have saved the day!” Thunberg beamed from ear to ear. “I’ll explain everything once I’ve talked Miss High-and-Mighty down from her ivory tower. But before I do, I have something that I believe belongs to you. I found it amongst the wreckage of the wagons.” Thunberg handed across a small package that had been wrapped in oilskin. “Try to take better care of it this time.”

Masson unwrapped the folds of oilskin to find his journal which, like its owner, it was battered and scratched on the outside. When Masson opened it and leafed through its pages, he found that only the sketches he had made for his garden and the notes he had scribbled on board the
Resolution
remained. The pages containing his imagined versions of the Queen’s flower, as well as the notes and maps he had made at False Bay, had all been torn from the bindings. He searched for Cook’s report, but found its hiding place within the back cover empty.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You can thank me by filling it with more drawings of the plants that I plan to discover on the way back to Cape Town. And there is one in particular that you might be interested in!”

But this last comment was muffled by the wind as Thunberg strode out to meet Jane who had not moved from her perch.

Masson watched him go and then, feeling as if he was somehow intruding, he turned and walked back to the camp, flipping back through the remaining pages of the journal.

As he sat by the dead grey ashes of the fire, he felt disappointed that his early sketches of the flower had been lost, but relieved that the pages which could have damned him were gone. They would be almost impossible to trace back to him, even if they were found. Without the complete journal, it would now be a matter of his word against Schelling’s.

He heard footsteps behind him and without looking up, he started in on the apology that he had been preparing in his mind for most of the morning. “Before we go any further, Lady Sommerton, I just wanted to say that I am deeply sorry.” Masson looked up, expecting to see Thunberg and Jane, but instead found himself face to face with the scowling visage of Eulaeus, whose burned clothes and soot-stained face gave him the look of a spectre just released from the gates of hell.

Masson stood very still, his eyes seeking out the rifle that leaned against the tree. He was closer to it than Eulaeus, but as his mind tried to work out the probability of successfully getting to the gun and firing it off before Eulaeus could reach him, he heard Thunberg and Jane walking towards the campsite, their animated chatter filling the air.

“Thunberg!” Masson shouted, dropping the journal and sprinting for the rifle.

As he reached the tree, he grabbed for the rifle and in one fluid movement brought it up to his shoulder and spun around to take aim at Eulaeus, who he expected to be almost on top of him. But Eulaeus had not moved; he was still standing in the same place with the same dark scowl creasing his brow. Masson adjusted his aim, levelled the barrel at the man’s chest and began to squeeze the trigger.

“Masson, no, wait!” Thunberg ran into the clearing and held both hands up as he jumped in between Masson and Eulaeus.

“Put down the rifle, Masson, please.”

Masson slowly lowered the rifle, and Thunberg took the gun from him.

“Ah, just as I thought, it was only on half-cock anyway,” Thunberg tut-tutted as he inspected the rifle. “I thought that you had paid closer attention to your lessons, Masson. After all, you could have been in a life-threatening situation!”

“Enough, Thunberg! Would you please be so good as to explain what the hell is going on? Why have you stopped me from putting a bullet through the very person who left us to be trampled to death by a herd of buffalo before selling us out just to save his own skin?”

“Yes, well. I suppose some explanation is in order, but before we get to that, can I just confirm that a truce has been declared between all warring parties?”

Both Masson and Jane seemed completely dazed, and Eulaeus still bore a scowl that seemed to have been etched on his face.

“I’ll take your silence as a response in the affirmative, excellent!” chirruped Thunberg.

“What about him?” asked Masson petulantly.

“Eulaeus has asked me to convey to you on his behalf his most sincere apologies for having abandoned us and leaving us for dead. He admits that whilst it was a grievous error of judgement, he does feel that there were mitigating circumstances, which, if you would allow, I will set before you now.”

Thunberg turned to Eulaeus as if seeking his approval to continue, and Eulaeus nodded, still scowling. With expectation thickening the air, Thunberg cleared his throat and began.

“The first thing that you need to know is that we will shortly find ourselves in the middle of a war between the Xhosa tribes and all European settlers in the Cape.”

Masson’s jaw fell open. “And you call this saving the day?”

But Thunberg’s smile only grew wider as he raised a hand to cut off Masson’s interruption. “But thanks to the help of Eulaeus, not only will we be able to sidestep the maelstrom that is set to engulf the frontier at any moment, but we will be able to do so having achieved all that your heart desires.”

Thunberg opened his arms and delivered his
coup de grâce
in full expectation of the showers of praise and adulation that would follow. “The flower, my dear Masson, the flower!”

“Have you lost your mind?” Masson hissed to the obvious disappointment of Thunberg, who still stood with arms outstretched like a messiah come to deliver his people from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

“Carl is right. If the flower is still there,” Jane reasoned, “then you have to take it now. If a war breaks out, who knows when there will be another opportunity?”

“Did he slip you some native herb on the way down here, or am I the only one to have lost whatever feeble grip I had left on my sanity? Perhaps all this is just some warped and twisted hallucination brought on by too much adrenalin and not enough bathing?” Masson paused for breath and then added for good measure, “And when did he rise so high in your estimation as to make the happy transition from ‘buffoon’ to ‘Carl’?”

Thunberg looked with surprise and hurt at Jane, who sheepishly shrugged her shoulders in reply. “Bygones?”

Thunberg bowed graciously and turned back to Masson. “Lady Sommerton has put her finger on it exactly, Masson.”

“Please, call me Jane. Or ‘buffoon’, if you prefer,” Jane said with blushing cheeks as Thunberg bowed even more deeply.

“Anyway, as Jane was saying, this really is your last chance. Besides, what have you got left to go back to? Even if you avoid the stockade, do you really want to go back to England empty-handed? I doubt that Sir Joseph will be much impressed. Who knows what view he may take of an expedition that was supposed to last two years being cut to just a few weeks?”

Masson could see that he was outflanked and outvoted. With two searching pairs of eyes focused on him, as well as Eualeus’s unwavering scowl, he felt pushed into a corner with nowhere left to go.

“Fine, fine, fine! If I am doomed to die searching for this blasted flower, then so be it.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Thunberg, clapping his hands together.

“There’s just one thing that I would like you to put straight.”

“Anything, just name it.”

“Would you care to explain how our escape, botched as it was, has somehow managed to start a frontier war?”

“The fire that Schelling started got out of control. It burned through the grazing land and destroyed much of their gardens as well as the Great Place. Chungwa is convinced that Schelling did it deliberately and blames Eulaeus for the entire thing. After all, it was he who brought us all to Two Rivers.”

Eulaeus visibly shuddered at the mention of the chief’s name. As Thunberg continued to talk, all the wind seemed to go out of Eulaeus, who slumped to the ground with his head between his knees.

“As Jane has probably already told you, Eulaeus had intended to win back his place amongst the tribe, but instead he is a marked man. He has agreed to take us to the flower so that we will take him back with us to the Cape. He has decided that a life of indentured servitude is preferable to being on the run in his own country.”