A Flower for the Queen: A Historical Novel (29 page)

“I knew, standing there in that country so fulsome with life, that it could be true. All I had to do was declare my feelings and it would unlock the shackles that had thus far bound my heart to a life that would lead only to the fulfilment of duty and not to the expression of a love that suddenly seemed to be inescapable.

“But I could not. Each day as the sun rose to meet a landscape that was never the same as the day before, my fear remained constant. I could not say what was on the tip of my tongue for the simple reason that I could not overcome the fear that it might all be a mistake — one last cruel trick played by a land where death was just as ever-present as life, and every bit as vivid in its intensity.

“I had faced down any number of perils and had managed to travel thousands of miles to find a flower that no one was sure existed, and yet I could not bring myself to say the one thing that would have made it all worthwhile — that I loved her.”

The old man sipped his tea and shook his head ruefully. Even Jack paused his scribbling and it was as if the entire room held its breath.

“And then,” the old man continued, “it was too late. I saw it in her eyes when we passed through that great basin, right before we emerged at the top of the Kloof pass. The look on her face was not one of eager anticipation or of relief that we had survived and were soon to be back in the warm embrace of a safe and civilised world, but one of disappointment and sorrow.

S
TELLENBOSCH
, 30 D
ECEMBER
, 1772

After arriving back in Stellenbosch late in the evening, the group found that Pieterszoon was away in Cape Town on business, and so they were free to wash up and eat in peace without fear of interrogation.

The next morning, they awoke to a clear and bright summer’s day and enjoyed their first decent breakfast in months. “I thought that I would go into Cape Town and find out when the next ship bound for England is due to depart,” Thunberg offered jovially.

Masson and Jane looked across the table at each other, neither of them wanting to be the one to address the topic that had managed to remain unresolved over the three weeks hard travelling back to the Cape.

At length, it was Masson who spoke first. “Why don’t we both take back the flower? I am sure that the letter of credit that I have from Sir Joseph would cover the cost of a cabin, and I could use your help to care for the flowers. That way you would have your passage back to England.”

Jane did not seem convinced. Masson, assuming her hesitancy to be due to the suggestion of a shared cabin, moved to reassure her. “We could travel as husband and wife — just for the sake of the journey, of course — and then I could take a hammock whilst you stay in the cabin with the flowers.”

“I’ve already taken your cabin once, and I’m sure that a married couple failing to share the same cabin on a ship would only cause unwanted questions,” replied Jane.

“If you don’t mind my saying,” interrupted Thunberg, “I think Masson’s plan is a good one. Your staying here in the Cape any longer than is necessary could lead to even more awkward conversations.”

Thunberg got up from the table and made as if to go. “I’ll let you two work out the details, but in the meantime you need to stay away from Cape Town. Leave the rest to me.”

“I should come with you — to make sure the ship is suitable for the flowers,” insisted Masson.

“No,” replied Thunberg. “It’s too much of a risk. What if Forster were to corner you and start asking about where you’ve been and what’s become of Schelling? And we don’t know for sure that Schelling didn’t show him or anyone else that journal. No, your priority must be to get out of here as quickly and as quietly as possible — with or without the flowers.”

Seeing that Masson was not convinced, Thunberg continued. “In any case, I have to go into town to warn van Plettenberg about the likelihood of a Xhosa uprising. Something like that could hurt a fellow’s reputation if it wasn’t done in the right kind of way …”

“Not to mention his chances of an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan,” Masson chimed in.

“Precisely,” said Thunberg. “In any case, I’ll also find out if he knows anything about the journal. I’ll be back in a couple of days, and then we can decide on how to proceed.”

As Thunberg cantered off towards Cape Town and Eulaeus set to work attempting to repair Pieterszoon’s wrecked cart, Masson and Jane were left to their own devices. Masson retired to the barn, where he continued to draw the samples that he had collected, but Jane seemed restless and could not settle in any one place for longer than a few minutes.

That evening, they ate alone in the vast dining room, the tall sash windows left open to allow the cooling breeze to waft over them. Even at dinner, Masson continued to work at his drawings, using them as a shield from the feelings and emotions that threatened to engulf him.

“There’s something that we haven’t discussed,” Jane said at last. “What happens when we get back to England?”

“I hadn’t really thought much about it,” Masson lied.

“Well, what do you think about it now?” She pushed back her chair and walked towards him, bringing with her the faint scent of lavender and jasmine.

Masson had spent the past four weeks asking himself the exact same question. For all that time, he had managed to find an excuse to delay answering, but he knew that now there could be no more prevaricating.

“It’s not that simple. Everything’s changed.” He knew what he wanted to say, but the words refused to form in his mouth.

“Like what?” she probed, locking her eyes onto his.

“Like the fact that a little over six weeks ago, I was a simple gardener with modest ambitions and a real chance to realise them. Now I’m a suspected spy who, like it or not, has helped to start a war, and all for what? So that a king who knows nothing about plants can name a flower after a queen who has never even put a foot on the soil from which it has sprung, let alone set her eyes on the land that gives it life.”

Off in the distance, fireworks erupted over the small town of Stellenbosch celebrating Hogmanay. They finished and were replaced with the sounds of distant singing and cheering as the people of the town began to celebrate the coming New Year.

Jane looked down at his drawings and then reached down and closed his journal “How is it that you can see plants so clearly to describe them with such precision, and yet you hide from your own feelings?”

She was so close that he could almost feel the softness of her skin. She had given him the perfect opening, and yet he still hesitated — and then it was lost. Without another word, she turned and ran from the dining room, leaving Masson alone with his journal, its title page seeming to mock him.

The night seemed to last an eternity. The moonflowers that hung like elfin trumpets from the trellis outside his window tormented his sleep with their sweet perfume as he lay stretched out on the cot bed, sweltering in the midsummer heat.

There was no breeze in the air, and even the crickets and cicadas were silent, overwhelmed by the heat and only the frogs croaked from their station at the pond that sat at the bottom of Pieterszoon’s sprawling garden.

Without the respite of sleep, he could not help but replay in his mind the moment when Jane had hovered over him, giving him the chance that he had been unable to make for himself. Each time he tried to fashion a different and more satisfying ending, but these fantasies evaporated under the heat and stillness of the night.

Resigned to the certainty of a sleepless night, Masson roused himself and after dressing and taking his journal, reed pens and a lantern, he went to the barn to try to pass the night by drawing.

By throwing himself into the work, he managed to make the hours pass even if his torment continued unabated. Just as the last of the oil began to flicker in the lamp, the first light of dawn crept under the crack beneath the great timber door. Masson repacked his things and made to go back to the house.

Not wanting to wake Jane, he avoided the gravel path that led straight back to the house, instead taking a detour via the pond, with the intention of walking across the lawn.

As he approached the pond, dawn was about to break over the ragged line of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains. The slopes below were shrouded in a fine amaranthine mist that was slowly being melted away by the amber tide of the sun’s burgeoning warmth.

The surface of the pond was like glass, and at its edge stood Jane, her back to him as she watched the approaching sunrise. Her hair hung down around her shoulders, and as it caught the light, it framed her upturned face in flecks and highlights of gold and copper.

Without thinking, Masson took up his reed pen and started drawing on the first blank page that fell open, the one that lay opposite the pressed specimen that Jane had given him. The nib raced across the page, seemingly of its own urgent accord, desperately trying to capture the moment.

When his ink ran dry, he opened his box of watercolours and used the dew that lay upon the grass to wet his brush. Then he stopped and looked at the picture he had created. It was simple, rough and even crude, but it was breathtakingly true to life. It was so unlike any of the drawings that he had done before that, were not for the inkstains on his fingers, he could not have been certain that it was by his hand.

“It’s beautiful.” Masson had been so entranced by the drawing that he had failed to notice Jane’s arrival at his shoulder. “I thought you only drew plants,” she said with a smile, the soft tones of her voice skipping across the stillness of the dawn without so much as a ripple.

“Well, I tried to add in the lilies, but I ran out of ink,” he replied. “Besides, I think I managed to get what I was after.”

“And now that you have it, do you like it?” she asked.

He paused before taking the leap and then held her gaze. “More than anything.”

Their kiss was announced by the sunrise and the symphony of birdsong that celebrated its arrival. For an instant, Masson forgot all that came before and all that was yet to come. He abandoned himself to Jane, to Africa, to that freedom whose taste he was discovering was intoxicating because it was absolutely, infinitely, perfectly right.

They held onto each other, trying to make the moment last, but as the sun rose over the mountains, they were forced to retreat back into the barn.

Jane pulled away from him gently and looked him square in the face, squinting slightly in the dim light of the dawn, trying to make out what was going on behind his eyes.

Masson returned her look and knew that he had to tell her now, regardless of the consequences.

“When we get back to England …”

But before he could finish his sentence, the barn door burst open. As the sunshine flooded in, the pair were momentarily blinded, unable to recognise the owner of deformed silhouette that stood against the light. Masson felt Jane tense up beside him as the figure slowly limped towards them.

As their eyes adjusted to the light, a gruesome face, twisted and shattered by hatred and pain, came into focus.

It was Schelling. Battered, but alive. Hunched over, he cradled a heavily bandaged arm in a sling. The bandage was ragged and dirty, and the smell was unimaginable. The limb around which it was wrapped was much shorter than it should have been. Stuffed into his belt were two pistols, and in his remaining, uninjured hand he held a third. It was fully cocked and pointed directly at Jane.

“They say that some are kept from death’s doorstep by a strong will to live, but in my case, I found that the will to see others die first can be just as effective,” Schelling chuckled darkly, in spite of his obvious pain.

As Masson pushed himself in front of Jane, shielding her, Schelling let out a deep, rasping cough, spitting out whatever he had hawked up onto the barn floor. “I don’t know where you managed to get the flowers,” Schelling said, gesturing at the boxes that had been stacked along the side of the barn, “but it should help to take the edge off some of the pain.”

When Masson heard the snap of the flint against the striking plate, he stood firm and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he saw the small flash as the powder in the pan was ignited, followed by the tongue of fire that erupted from the pistol’s muzzle. The report sounded like a cannon within the confines of the barn.

Masson braced himself for the impact of the steel ball that he was sure would tear through his body. He drew a deep breath of lavender- and jasmine-tinted air, convinced that Jane’s scent would be his last sensation.

But Masson felt nothing other than the softness of her body pressed against his. Thinking that Schelling had missed — or worse, that he had somehow managed to hit Jane, he opened his eyes and got ready to charge before the wounded man could draw another pistol from his belt.

But Schelling wasn’t reaching for another pistol. Instead, he stared at Jane and Masson in dumb wonderment before dropping to his knees whereupon his eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he fell face-first onto the straw-covered ground.

Another silhouette had appeared at the barn door. Eulaeus lowered a smoking rifle and threw it to ground. He half turned, pausing at the door to offer one last explanation without looking back at them. His accent was thick, and the English words sounded like unwelcome visitors in his mouth, but his voice was as clear as the conviction it conveyed.

“I told him where the flowers were because he promised me freedom. Then he burned the fields and my village. My people will blame me, and they will be right. I was afraid, but now I can go back. If there is war, they will need me. But if not, then I will accept whatever punishment they decide to give me.”

By the time they reached the door, Eulaeus had already mounted Schelling’s horse and was galloping off. In the opposite direction, coming at full canter, was Thunberg. He pulled up and hailed Eulaeus, who simply raised his hand in greeting and then rode off without breaking stride as he passed a puzzled Thunberg.