Yesterday's Promise (6 page)

Rogan looked up from the yellowing sheets. The ship's groaning timbers gave voice to mental images of Sir Julien Bley engaged in divination. The idea seemed ludicrous from what Rogan knew of him. Odd…was it so? Sir Julien Bley involved with African witchcraft? Old practical Julien would have been the last person he'd ever suspect of dabbling in superstition. Was there power in such nonsense? Rogan tried to think back to his growing-up years in the church under Vicar Edmund Havering. He couldn't recall the vicar ever discussing anything diabolical.

I'll have a look into this myself. Derwent might know a few things. Does the Bible speak about it? Just what was Julien trying to do when Henry walked in on him?

Rogan drew his brows together. Along with his blood uncle's warnings, his own suspicions grew stronger. Henry had his faults, but he had never been ruthless in the hardened way Julien was.

Julien's presence at Rookswood made Rogan wary, even as a boy.
After Henry's will was read and his bequest of the map known to the family, Julien would come from Capetown and seek him out alone to “have a small chat.” By the time Rogan turned twelve, he didn't trust Julien. He would sense being “watched” from the shadows of the mansion, or in the garden. Julien would come to Rookswood each year to visit “the dear family,” something he had never made much of before the reading of Uncle Henry's will. More than clever for his age, Rogan began to turn the tables on Sir Julien. He would follow him at night to the third floor and watch him enter Henry's old rooms to search time and again.

Was Henry killed for the Black Diamond, or the map? Was it Uncle Julien who murdered Henry? With his powerful influence, Julien could have easily arranged things at Grimston Way to cover over anything that might point to him.

Rogan reached for the other item on his desk, perhaps the more important, the map. The ship pitched again, and Rogan held a column to steady himself. He squinted for perhaps the hundredth time at the emblem of a bird—or birds. He'd long pondered the meaning of the symbols Henry had drawn on the map. Could it represent a falcon, a hawk, or some fowl peculiar to that area? Perhaps he was making too much of it. In all the meticulous research he'd done in London since locating the map, he had yet to find anything significant about a bird in the region north of the Limpopo River. Henry had also drawn a lion and a baobab tree.

Perhaps the trek itself would shed light on any obscure meanings contained in the wildlife symbols. Was it possible that Henry had nothing more in mind than adding a touch of artistic flair to the painting? If so, its application here would merely have detracted from his usual clarity.

Rogan's thoughts roamed to his grandfather, Sir George, who died at sea on a return voyage from the Cape in 1869. Rogan knew him only by his grandiose portrait displayed above the stairwell in the Great Hall at Rookswood with the rest of the Chantry squires.

Soon after discovering the map, Rogan had asked about his grandfather. One day he found his father busy writing a history of Rookswood. He looked up from his books with typical impatience, brows twisted as though hooked together over the bridge of his aristocratic nose.

“My father found the Kimberly Diamond? Balderdash! What is this, Rogan, more of Henry's Folly? I wish that will of his had never mentioned leaving you a map.”

Rogan held his questions and, after that meeting, never again went to his father on the subject. Had he tried to justify himself, showing the map or diary pages, the news would soon have reached Julien in Cape House. Rogan had long been rankled by the way he saw his father submit to his stepbrother. All through the years he had grown up at Rookswood, he had longed to see his father confront Julien head-on. But whenever opportunity arose, his father, Lyle, always backed down, insisting, “Conflict is foolish,” and would withdraw to another room to lose himself in his private interests.

Rogan replaced the map and diary pages into a leather envelope he wore on his person to guarantee safety, then glanced at his pocket watch. It was close to midnight. Tomorrow the ship would be entering the Cape harbor. That is, if the storm did not delay them. Sir Lyle or Aunt Elosia would have wired Cape House that he was aboard the HMS
King George
. Would Julien be waiting? More than likely he would be riled that Rogan had not completed a full year in the family diamond business in London. Rogan knew his uncle would assume he had found the work too tame and, longing for action, had grown restless.

To occupy time alone in the cabin, he picked up a pencil and turned his attention to his personal journal. He had begun writing down what he knew of Henry's death when he'd departed London. Then, as ideas accumulated, he grew interested in trying to make more sense of his mysterious death.

Rogan scowled. He looked at the last entry he'd made the night before, dated the first week of July. He mused over his own words as he reread them.

Rogan tapped his chin and sighed. He snapped the journal closed and placed it inside his leather satchel. Outside, the wind increased. Restless and eager to disembark, he stood up just as the ship pitched violently, and losing his balance, he struck his head on the protruding cabin bulkhead. Leaning on one knee while propped against the wall, he narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth.
One thing I am glad of. I won't ever need to be a sea captain!

He crawled to his bunk and tied himself in for the rough night.

He thought of Evy Varley…those amber eyes with green flecks, and wavy, tawny hair… Where was she now? What was she doing? He imagined her playing her piano. Was she also remembering him?

Even though Rogan was out at sea, the distant sight of Table Mountain, appearing to rise above the watery horizon, with white clouds draping its flat top, roused his imagination. Later that afternoon he was standing on the ship's deck with his back to the stiff landward breeze as they neared Table Bay and Capetown, when an old sailor he'd spoken to on the voyage came up beside him and gestured to the mountain range.