Jenny Telfer Chaplin (10 page)

Chapter Four

Coming up for their second Christmas and New Year in Equatorial Africa, Elenor, try as she might, could not work up any enthusiasm for the round of parties and festive events. The season was simply not the same spent under the white-heat glare of a tropic sun.

As December edged toward the due dates, Elenor’s spirits plunged ever downward into a black hole of utter depression. Concerned for her physical and mental well-being, Rory without having said a word about his intentions arrived home earlier than usual one evening bearing in triumph a small basket, from the open side of which peeped out the cheeky face of a little puppy.

From the first moment she saw the scrap of vibrant life, Elenor fell in love with it. “Rory, how marvellous. What a lovely surprise. Just exactly what I need to lift my mood, especially after our usual monthly disappointment.”

She embraced both her husband and the latest arrival into their home, laughing aloud with sheer joy. Never before had she had a pet and it being a gift from her darling husband made it all the more special.

“I’ll call him Maxie. What do you think of that?”

“Maxie?
How on earth would you come up with a name like that? I would have thought something along the lines of Clyde, Argyll or even the sainted Ivylea might be more appropriate.”

They both laughed at the absurdity of Rory’s suggestions and Maxie it was.

However, not long after Christmas, Maxie disappeared never to be seen again.

Elenor knew in her heart of hearts she was being grossly unfair to Rory in blaming him for causing her unnecessary heartache for having given her the puppy in the first place. But ...

“What I’d never have had, I’d never have missed,” she moaned at him for the umpteenth time on a January day.

Rory, normally a placid, easygoing man, snapped.

“Grow up! It’s all about you. How you feel.
Never a thought about the poor dog ending up in someone’s stew pot.”

Elenor gasped.
“Rory! What a thing to say”

“Get over it! You’ve made my life a misery for weeks now nattering on about that damned dog. So much for my kind thought.”

In a stage whisper Elenor said: “I’ll thank you not to yell – the servants will hear.”

“Let them hear. It’s a pity that Hausa-man never warned you about a puppy coming into your life instead of gittering on about the spirit of Africa and angry mountains.” Rory snorted. “Angry
mountain be damned, I’m the one that’s angry.”

“Then that makes two of us!”

A discrete cough made them both turn to look at Napoleon.

“Excuse me, Madam, Doctor. Doctor, you’re needed at the hospital.”

Rory collected his case without another look at Elenor, then, on the verandah steps, he turned and said: “I’ll cadge a bed at the hospital tonight.” And with that strode out of the compound.

After a solitary dinner Elenor tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. The silence round her seemed almost tangible and ominous. In the bedroom, about to prepare for an early night, the thought of tossing and turning alone in the mosquito-net tented confines appalled her. She returned to the sitting room to the well-filled drinks trolley Napoleon had left before he went off duty. After two hefty measures of gin and tonic the thought came to her: I can see why homesick, lonely people here in the vastness of Africa can come to think of Demon Drink as their only true friend and lifeline.

That was her last coherent thought before dreams enfolded her. In one dream she stood in the bay window at Clydeview looking out at the storm-tossed Firth as the wind howled. A crashing noise startled her and Elenor came to. This wasn’t a dream, the wind was shrieking. She made her way to the verandah and looked out. Smashed garden furniture littered the yard. There was what sounded like a scream behind and above her. A huge piece of corrugated iron flew over her and slammed into the earth mere inches away from the night watchman who, with a shriek, fled the scene. The heavens opened and virtually horizontal rain blotted out her view of the yard.

Standing on the verandah, Elenor became aware of a second sound, a veritable waterfall. Water cascaded down the stairs from the upper floor of House Thirteen. Obviously, the sheet of iron that had almost hit the night watchman must have been part of the roof. Elenor retreated to the sitting room. The house shook as more pieces of the roof were ripped off but the main floor held and as the rain eased, the torrent of water flowing from the upper floor became a trickle leaving everything soaked. The clouds parted and Elenor ventured back onto the verandah to a scene of devastation in the bright moonlight. The servants quarters and her schoolroom were gone. Odd rags caught in the trees fluttered in the still strong breeze. She was alone.

In the main room of the first floor in the dim moonlight everything looked surprisingly normal. The floor was wet but with House Thirteen being built on stilt-like poles, the water from the first floor had followed the easiest path to the ground via the verandah and the outside stairs.

Heaven only knows what will have happened to anything stored below, Elenor thought.

Reasoning that there was no point in her trying to go anywhere else and that the house seemed solid enough and no longer shaking in the gale, Elenor huddled in a chair. She glanced at the drinks-trolley beside her.

No, that’s not the answer, she thought. I’m just lucky that I fell asleep down here and not upstairs in bed.

Morning finally came and Elenor heard excited voices approaching the compound.

A loud English voice sounded over the chatter. “Some of you check the wreckage of the
servants quarters. Two of you come with me. We must see how Mrs Doctor Kennedy is.”

Elenor moved out onto the verandah. “I’m fine, George. Up here.”

George Waters, one of the Company Police, looked at the damage to House Thirteen.

“Well, it didn’t live up to its reputation, did it? I expected it to be down and here you are with nary a scratch. Let’s get you down to the hospital. Your husband’s up to his ears in casualties. And there have been several deaths from the sudden storm.”

Elenor was pleased to hear that none of her household staff was badly injured. When their quarters blew down they had fled to relatives and Napoleon was there with the rescue party grinning hugely at seeing her safe.

At the hospital Rory took time to give her a rib-cracking hug and a kiss.

“Right, Elenor, make yourself useful. See if you can coral the loose children and get them out from underfoot. They’re more excited now than frightened.”

What seemed like hours later, Rory and Elenor sat in the hospital staff room drinking hot sweet tea.

They both started to speak at the same time, “Sorry about last night ...” and laughed. When again they spoke together, “Let’s forget ...” Rory held up a hand.
“Me first. Let’s forget it ever happened. It must have been the tension before the storm. It happens. OK? Kiss and make up?”

Their kiss was interrupted by one of the Company men coming in and waving a newspaper at them. The banner headline, in the blackest ink, leapt out at them.

THE MOUNTAIN IS ANGRY

Elenor devoured the article. In the middle of the tropical storm, volcanic Mount Cameroon had erupted and a nearby village in the direct path of the lava flow had been badly damaged with considerable loss of life. The locals believed the mountain was not pleased with some disputed change in government policy and had taken its revenge making its displeasure heard and felt. The mountain was telling a waiting world:

THE MOUNTAIN IS ANGRY!

“What did that Hausa-man say?”

Elenor gazed at Rory and recited: “Africa calls to you in spirit, my friend. Remember that when you are alone and the mountain is angry.”

“There’s no denying it. You were alone and the mountain was angry. Maybe you are in tune with Africa after all.”

When it neared the end of his second tour of duty in the Cameroons Elenor knew that although he loved Africa and their Cameroon lifestyle as much as she did, Rory was torn between renewing his contract and trying his luck elsewhere after their home leave to Scotland.

Finally, tired of his seemingly endless indecision she said: “For heaven’s sake, Rory stop dithering. Let’s have a really relaxing home leave in Scotland – see our folks, our friends, even the psychic Miss Patten – and take it from there. The Company is being extremely fair to you. They’re hiring a locum to cover until after your leave, so obviously they want you back and they’re giving you free rein to make up your mind.”

As they loaded their belongings onto the same narrow-gauge trolley they had arrived on years before, one of Elenor’s garden boys, who rejoiced in the name of ‘
Godly’ said: “Forgive me, Madam, Africa calls you back in spirit. You will know this soon, Africa will draw you back.”

Elenor thought: What a high- flown message for the sake of a three month’s leave separation.

But at the thought, Elenor felt suddenly sure that she would never again set foot in Africa, but an intangible psychic connection had been established and that, yes, Africa would call her in mind, in spirit, in dreams – she was a living integral part of Africa and that magical continent was now and forever part of her.

Chapter Five

Even before they headed home to Scotland, Elenor had been aware of Miss Patten’s failing health. A recent letter from her Mother had warned her of the drastic change she could expect to see in the ageing medium. On the long journey home Elenor hoped that she would see Miss Patten again. However, being met by her Mother at the Dunoon pier one glance was enough to tell Elenor that Miss Patten’s allotted span of time on Earth had run out.

This was not the homecoming she had envisaged. In her mind’s eye she had rehearsed scenes of sitting in Ivylea’s drawing room regaling her family and friends with tales of life in West Africa and perhaps even getting the chance to discuss at length with Miss Patten the Hausa-man’s prediction. Now faced with the fact that Miss Patten had gone to her eternal rest, Elenor was finding it difficult – just as she had when her Granny Mutch had passed – difficult to come to terms with the finality of it all. Even so, she knew if the situation was painful for her then it must be a hundred times worse for her Mother. Not only
was she having to endure the emotional loss of her best friend, but in the uncertainty of who would now own Ivylea, she was faced with the possible loss of her home.

As they sat across from each other at the breakfast table a few days after Elenor’s return they again discussed the possible future. What had highlighted the matter was the arrival the afternoon before of a letter from a solicitor requesting their attendance at his office for the reading of Miss Patten’s will that afternoon.

Elenor’s Mother, trying to lighten the mood, said: “I think I am dreading this almost as much as the funeral, but before she died Miss Patten assured me that she would never allow me and Archie to be homeless – so that’s something.”

“What exactly do you think she meant by that?”

“She didn’t go into details. Perhaps she put something in her will to oblige the new owners of Ivylea to let me go on renting Stable Cottage. Can you do that in a will?”

“I don’t know, Mum. Anyway we’ll know soon enough won’t we?”

“Do you remember when you were a wee girl you used to sit on Miss Patten’s knee and fiddle with those long strings of beads she always wore?”

Elenor’s laughed. “Yes.
And the dangly earrings. Remember how they used to sway back and forward as she talked – they fascinated me.” She paused. “Before we left for Africa she hinted – in a joking sort of way – that I shouldn’t buy too many trinkets in Africa or else I’d have more jewellery than I could ever wear. Do you think that’s why we’ve been asked to the reading? She’s left me her jewellery?”

As they sat waiting in the anteroom of the solicitor’s office, Elenor looked round.

“There’s no one else here, Mum. Are we too early? I thought her relatives would be here by now.”

Her Mother frowned. “She told me once, she didn’t have any blood relatives left alive. But she talked often about the man her father refused to let her marry. He settled in Ayrshire somewhere and I know Miss Patten kept in touch with him and his family over the years. That photograph of a man with two teenage boys – remember the one in the centre of the mantelshelf in the drawing room? That was her long lost love and his sons. She had a whole host of photographs like that in an album she kept in her room.”

“Maybe she left Ivylea and her money to them?”

“Anyway, the ferry is late today. That’s it just docking now. The solicitor is probably waiting for the others to arrive.”

However, the door to the solicitor’s inner office opened and his secretary emerged and ushered Elenor and her mother into his presence.

When they were seated and introduced, without further preamble he read the will.

To Elenor Kennedy, née Duncan, Ivylea House, its grounds and household contents, contingent on the said Elenor Kennedy ceding to Mary Jane Duncan/Cooper, née Gregg, life tenancy of
the
said Ivylea House without encumbrance.

To Elenor Kennedy, née Duncan my jewellery.

The balance of my estate to be held in Trust, from the income of which Trust, to be paid such legal charges as are due and payable on Ivylea House and its grounds during the life tenancy of Mary Jane Duncan/Cooper, née Gregg. Residue of such Trust to be available to Elenor Kennedy, née Duncan for the purpose of establishing a respite home for needy children .

For someone who had long believed that lifestyle was what you decided on for yourself and achieved through your own efforts, Elenor was now finding that Fate, in the shape of Miss Patten’s will, was now taking a hand.

She had been hesitant about broaching the subject of not returning to Africa to Rory. As they emerged from the solicitor’s office Rory met her and suggested a walk along the West Bay. Once alone, Rory, without any preamble said: “I’ve been thinking over an idea for a couple of days – I’m not quite sure how you will take it–”

“After that meeting, I’ve got some pretty radical ideas of my own.”

Rory grinned. “She left you all her beads and baubles and you’re going to set up as a spey-wife?”

“Not exactly. Let’s have a seat here for spell.”

She explained the details of Miss Patten’s Will and rather hesitantly said: “So – if we don’t go back to Africa ... what I’d really like for us to do is to move into Stable Cottage when Mum and Archie take over Ivylea House–”

“Maybe you are ready to set up as a spaewife. What I’ve been thinking and what I was about to suggest was exactly that. Our folks are getting on a bit and I think we’d both be happier living close by and not half the world away in Africa.”

Elenor laughed with relief then frowned.
“But what about employment? I shouldn’t think there’s enough business here for another GP, is there?”

“Well ... I happened to bump into old Dr Orr a couple of days ago. He’d love to semi-retire if he could find someone younger to buy into his practice and help out with his workload at Clydeview. I’m younger, we’ve got some money from Africa,
you’ve got a house for us – Stable Cottage – what could be better?”