Daughters of Castle Deverill (50 page)

She was about to introduce herself, but the woman gesticulated to a chair with long, elegant fingers. ‘I know who you are,’ she said in a heavy accent, sitting down opposite and
picking up her long-handled pipe which she had been smoking. She was a full-bodied woman with strong arms and voluptuous breasts, greying hair just visible beneath her turban and a gauntness about
her cheeks which betrayed her age, but Celia could see that she had once been beautiful. Her eyes were the colour of shiny brown conkers and slanted like a cat’s. When she looked at Celia
they possessed a certain haughtiness which Celia imagined had earned her the name Duchess. Indeed, her skin was smooth and unlined, her cheekbones high and her eyebrows gracefully arched, giving
her an air of nobility. Her full lips curved in a pretty bow shape and her teeth were very big and white. ‘You are Digby Deverill’s girl,’ she said, running her intense gaze over
Celia’s features. ‘I would recognize you out of a thousand women,’ she added. ‘It’s the eyes. I’d know them anywhere.’

‘I am Digby’s daughter,’ said Celia, smiling. ‘I’ve just arrived in South Africa and I wanted to meet you.’

The woman clicked her tongue. ‘How is your father?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid he died,’ said Celia quietly. The woman blinked in horror and her head fell back a little, as if she had just been slapped. ‘It was a terrible shock for all
of us,’ Celia explained, suddenly questioning her wisdom in coming. ‘He was still young and full of life.’ She proceeded to tell Duchess how he had died because the woman’s
grief prevented her from speaking. While Celia chattered on Duchess’s long fingers played about her trembling lips.

Eventually her eyes, now heavy with sorrow, settled on Celia. ‘So, you want to see me because I knew your father?’

Celia was embarrassed and lowered her gaze. What right did she have to turn up uninvited and dig up this woman’s past without knowing anything about it? ‘Yes, I want to know who he
was. From what Mr Botha tells me, you knew him better than anyone.’

Duchess’s eyes seemed to gather Celia into their thrall. Celia stared back, powerless to look away. It was as if the woman was a vault of secrets which was on the point of being opened.
‘Your father betrayed everyone around him,’ she said softly, blowing out a puff of blue tobacco smoke. ‘And he betrayed
me.
But God knows, I’ve never loved anyone
like I loved Digby Deverill.’

‘He betrayed
you
?’ Celia asked, astonished. The feeling of reckless happiness which had been brought on by the verification that her father wasn’t the murderer of
Aurelius Dupree’s story now crumbled and she felt the sickening fear return as shadows swallowing the light. ‘I’m sorry . . . perhaps I shouldn’t have
come.’ She made to get up.

‘No, perhaps you should not have. But as you are here you might as well stay.’ Celia remained on the chair wishing very much that she could leave. But Duchess had waited more than
forty years to tell her story and she was determined to have her say. ‘God has sent you to my door, Miss Deverill. I wondered whether I would ever see your father again. But the years passed
and our story faded like dye in sunlight, but not for me. My heart loves now as it loved then and it has not learned otherwise. So, you will not leave with nothing, Miss Deverill. You came to see
me for a reason and I am glad you have come.’ She pressed her lips to the pipe and Celia noticed the glass-beaded bracelets around her wrists and necklaces hanging over her breasts in
elaborate designs of many colours. ‘My name is Sisipho, which means ‘gift’ in Xhosa, but your father called me Duchess. He said I was beautiful and I
was
then, Miss
Deverill. I was as beautiful as you are.’ She lifted her chin and her sultry eyes blazed with pride. ‘Your father was a gentleman. He always treated me with respect, not like other
white men treat black women. He listened to me. He made me feel like I was worth something. He even took me around Johannesburg in a horse and buggy.’ She pressed her fist to her heart.
‘He made me feel valued.’ She nodded in the direction of the bookshelf. ‘Those books you see there. He taught me English and he taught me to read. Digby gave them to me and I have
read them all a hundred times. He spoiled me. He made me feel special and I
was
special, to him.’ Celia wondered if anyone since had made her feel special. From the way she was now
wiping her eyes with those impossibly elegant fingers Celia doubted it. ‘He shared all his secrets with me. I knew everything and I have kept those secrets for over forty years. But I
don’t want to die with them. They’re a heavy burden to carry through the gates of Heaven, Miss Deverill. I’m going to give them to you.’

Celia did not want to carry the burden of Duchess’s secrets either, but she had no choice. Duchess was determined to relieve herself of them. She puffed on her pipe and the smoke filled
the room with a sweet, persistent smell. ‘Digby won a farm in a game of cards. He was so good at reading people that he rarely lost. He’d come and tell me all about it. About the
foolish men who lost everything they had at the gambling tables. Not Digby. He wasn’t foolish like them. He was clever and he knew it. He knew he was going to make money. He wanted to go back
to London a rich man. Men would do anything to make their fortunes here. Your father was no different.’ She chuckled and for the first time Celia saw how her face glowed like a beautiful
black dahlia when she smiled. ‘And he did go back to London a rich man. A
very
rich man.’ Now she narrowed her eyes and her smile turned fiendish. ‘But he was ruthless,
Miss Deverill. Your father didn’t make his fortune Moses’ way. No, he broke a few Commandments on the path to prosperity. After all, if he had been a virtuous man he would not have
loved
me
.’ Celia watched in fascination as this woman enlivened in the brilliance of her memories. She laid them out before her as if they were treasures, stowed away for decades and
now displayed all bright and glittering for the only person interested in looking at them. And all the while her eyes shone with zeal as the words came tumbling out.

‘But Digby didn’t care what other people thought and he came to see me all the same. He told me about his winnings and he spent some of it on me.’ Her eyes were misting now as
she remembered the good times. ‘He’d rush in all excited, like a boy with a present for his mama, and I’d scold him for spending money on me when he should have been saving what
he had for the mines he was going to build. He didn’t trust his own kind. White men – they might steal his diamonds, his money, but he trusted
me.
I knew he was going to strike
it rich. I could see it in his ambition. If anyone was going to make it rich it was Digby Deverill – and there were thousands of men like him, with ambition and desire, all digging in the
same place, but somehow I knew Digby would make it. He had the luck of the Devil. So, having won the farm north of Kimberley he and two others went to look for diamonds there and they found
them.’

‘Mr Botha told me about this,’ said Celia, with rising interest. ‘Tiberius and Aurelius Dupree.’

Duchess shook her head and the beads that hung from her ears swung from side to side. ‘Those boys were no match for Digby,’ she said proudly. ‘Their biggest mistake was in
trusting him. But he looked like an angel with those big blue eyes and that halo of golden hair. He looked as innocent as a lamb. When he no longer needed them he got rid of them the old-fashioned
way.’

‘What do you mean?’ Celia asked. The smoke suddenly seemed to turn to ice and envelop her in its chilly grip. ‘Tiberius was killed by a lion.’

Duchess watched Celia with a steady gaze. Her voice had a stillness about it now; even the smoke seemed to stagnate. ‘He didn’t die by a lion. He died by a bullet.’

‘Aurelius’s bullet,’ said Celia firmly. Her heart was thumping so violently now against her ribs that she had to put a hand there in an attempt to quieten it.

Duchess shook her head but this time the bead earrings did not move. ‘Captain Kleist’s bullet.’

Celia stared at her, eyes wide with terror. ‘Captain Kleist, the white hunter?’

‘He was a ruffian who fought in the Prussian army. He thought nothing of killing a man. He arranged the trip and he made sure that Tiberius’s death looked like it was an
accident.’

‘But Aurelius was accused of his brother’s murder and spent four decades in prison.’

‘He didn’t do it,’ said Duchess matter-of-factly. ‘Digby framed him.’

Celia began to cough. The smoke was now choking her. She stood up and staggered to the door. Outside, the sun was setting and the air had turned grainy with dusk and dust and a cool breeze swept
through the township bringing the relief of autumn. She leant against the doorframe and gasped. Mr Botha had fallen asleep in the car. His head was thrown back against the seat and his mouth was
wide open. She could hear his snores from ten feet away.

So, her father was everything Aurelius Dupree had said he was. He had cheated the brothers, had one murdered and framed the other. She wanted to vomit with the shock of it. She wanted to expel
what she had heard. How she wished she had never come.

‘So why did you love him?’ she demanded, striding back into the room.

Duchess was still sitting on her chair. She was delving into a bright beaded bag for tobacco for her pipe. ‘Because he was the Devil,’ she said simply. ‘No one is more
attractive than the Devil.’ She grinned broadly and flicked her eyes up at Celia. ‘And he treated me like a duchess.’

Celia sat down again. She ran her knuckles across her lips in thought. ‘You said he betrayed you too,’ she said.

‘One day your father stopped coming to see me. He just disappeared from my world and I never heard from him again. Because of your father I was cast out of my community and disowned by my
family. But I am a Christian woman now, Miss Deverill, and I have found it in my heart to forgive. I forgive them all.’

With a trembling hand Celia fumbled with the catch on her handbag. ‘I don’t have much but what I have left I want to give to you.’

Duchess put up a hand to stop her. ‘I don’t want your money. I never asked for anything from Digby and I won’t accept anything from you. I have told you my story.’

‘But I want to give you something. For keeping Papa’s secret.’

‘I kept it because I love him.’

‘But he can’t thank you himself.’

Duchess narrowed her eyes and grinned. ‘No, but I want to thank
you
for coming, child. I want to give
you
something. It was the year 1899 and my brother was a Piccanin
working for an Afrikaner gold prospector who took him down to a farm in the Orange Free State. They said there was gold there.
Lots
of gold. But it was so deep they didn’t have the
means to mine it. So I told Digby. You see, there was a farm for sale next door that belonged to a man named van der Merwe, and no one had thought to buy that. Digby was no fool and he knew that
the land might be useless then but in years to come, he said, “Who knows what man might have created to dig deeper into the earth.” So he bought the land for nothing and it’s been
sitting there, untouched, for years. Now I know that the mines around Johannesburg are going real deep now. Deeper than they ever did. Why don’t you think about digging there instead of
digging into your father’s past, and if you find gold,
then
you can give me some.’

Celia left Duchess smoking on her pipe. She woke Mr Botha with a shake. He gave one final snort and sat up. ‘Just dozed off for a second,’ he said, taking the
wheel.

‘Thank you for bringing me, Mr Botha. My visit was very enlightening.’

‘Now back to the hotel?’ he asked.

‘Yes please,’ she said, closing the passenger door and leaning back against the leather. She needed time to digest what Duchess had told her. She needed to figure out what to do. She
also wondered how much of the truth Mr Botha knew and was concealing from her. As the car motored over the lengthening shadows the children walked out into the cloud of red dust they left behind
and watched the glimmer of metal disappear round the corner. ‘Tell me, Mr Botha, what do you know about van der Merwe farm?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Celia gave him a hard stare. ‘You worked for my father and yet you claim to know nothing about land my father bought?’

Mr Botha shrugged his big shoulders. ‘Your father’s mines have all been sold to the Anglo American Corporation, to Ernest Oppenheimer. There’s nothing left but some old legal
papers in the safe.’

‘Then I’d like to see them, please,’ Celia told him.

‘There is nothing worth seeing, Mrs Mayberry.’

Celia gave him her most charming smile. ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Botha, I’d like to have a look all the same. Just in case.’

‘Very well,’ Mr Botha replied with a weary sigh. ‘I will take you. But I remember nothing about van der Merwe’s farm. To be frank with you, Mrs Mayberry, Duchess is old
and her memory is a little vague.’

‘Well, while we’re being frank, do you know of a man named Captain Kleist?’ she asked.

‘Der Kapitän,’ he said. ‘He is an old drunk and a blaggard and I don’t believe he ever fought in the Franco-Prussian War. Why? Do you want to meet him
too?’

Celia did not like his tone. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I would.’

Mr Botha shook his head disapprovingly. ‘He’s a fraud and a phoney, Mrs Mayberry. If he remembers anything it will be through the filter of alcohol or simply invented. He’s
nearly ninety and losing his mind.’

‘Where might I find him?’

‘Propping up the bar in the Rand Club,’ he replied with a derisory snort. ‘But women are not permitted.’

‘Then I have to see him where I
am
permitted, Mr Botha.’

He sighed. ‘All right, I will see what I can do, Mrs Mayberry.’

Mr Botha’s office was on the second floor of an elegant white building which could have been in the middle of London, yet here it was in the middle of Johannesburg. He
showed her into the foyer and closed the heavy wooden door on the noisy street where trams, motor cars, men on bicycles and women on foot went about their business with the usual urgency of city
dwellers. It was quiet inside the building and the woman at the front desk in a pair of glasses and blue tailored jacket smiled at Mr Botha. He said something to her in Afrikaans and then headed
off up the stairs. He showed Celia into his office and offered her a glass of water, but Celia was anxious to find the paperwork for Mr van der Merwe’s farm. Mr Botha filled a glass for
himself and then asked her to follow him to the safe, which was in a small cupboard in a room further down the corridor. He took a while to unlock it and Celia felt he was being slow on purpose.
But it opened at last and Mr Botha leaned in and grabbed a cardboard box with his big hand. ‘These are your father’s papers,’ he told her, putting it down on the desk. ‘You
are welcome to go through them.’