Listening for Lions Page 6

  SIX

  We turned down a winding lane that ran between two rows of tall trees. A flock of large black birds shot up into the sky. A rabbit watched us pass. “Is this some sort of park?” I asked.

  “No, no,” Mr. Grumbloch said. “It’s all part of the Pritchard estate.” The roadway curved this way and that, so I didn’t see the house until we were upon it. “That is Stagsway,” Mr. Grumbloch said.

  At first I couldn’t believe it was someone’s home. I thought it must be a great church, like one of the English cathedrals I had seen in pictures. It was all gables and chimneys, and so large it seemed impossible that it should be a home for just one person. The front of the house was made of a kind of white plaster. Crisscrossing the plaster were timbers set to make a design. Beyond the house were acres of trees, and beyond the trees rolling fields. It appeared tame and peaceful, not at all like the African bush. I could not imagine a leopard lying in wait among those snow-covered fields.

  An elderly man in a black suit stood at the entrance. I was so used to the white suits of the planters and the bright colors of the African men’s blankets that it looked to me as if all English men were in mourning. The elderly man shuffled down a wide stairway to meet us. As he opened the car door for us, I could hear him trying to catch his breath. Mr. Grumbloch asked, “How is Mr. Pritchard, Burker?”

  “I’m afraid he is very weak, sir, but looking forward to seeing the young mistress. We are very pleased to have you, Miss Valerie.” Here was the third person to be deceived.

  As we climbed the stairway to the entrance, he hurried along beside us, puffing and panting like a faithful old dog. My own breath disappeared as we entered the house, for we stepped into a hall many times the size of our entire house in Africa. The ceiling soared several stories. The walls were paneled in a dark wood, and halfway up one of the walls was a narrow balcony. The floors were covered with faded carpets. A fireplace big as a hippopotamus was on one side of the room and a long table stretched along the other wall. Here and there were high-backed chairs large enough for giants. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see peeking around a screen the heads of some women wearing aprons and fancy caps. At an indignant look from Burker, they quickly disappeared.

  “See to these, Arthur.” Burker handed our coats to a young man in a sort of uniform who blushed as he took them.

  Mr. Grumbloch led me up a stairway, and as Burker trailed behind us, I could hear his knees creaking. A large lion was carved onto each of two massive stairway posts. I thought of how Kanoro had told me that I must be like the lion, gathering my strength and awaiting my time.

  The steps were steep, and as I climbed I held on to the banister, feeling like Jacob climbing the ladder that reached to heaven. We came to a landing and a long hallway. Burker swept open a door, and I looked into a darkened bedroom. Lying upon an enormous bed hung with velvet draperies was the man in the picture in Valerie’s room. The outline of his shape in the bed was long and thin. His expression was very severe. I thought him so like a Masai warrior, I felt the Masai greeting, sobai, coming to my lips. When I looked more closely, I saw that beneath the severity was a look of hopelessness and defeat. It was the look of a Masai who has been shut into a prison.

  “Here she is, Hobart,” Mr. Grumbloch said.

  With great effort the man turned his head upon the pillow and stared at me with so penetrating a look, I was sure he knew me for the fraud I was, and I trembled.

  “Not what I expected,” he said. His voice was harsh, and he paused between words as if he were catching his breath. “A thin little thing and peaked. You look half frightened to death.” He turned to Mr. Grumbloch. “Thank you, Reginald.” As I watched the solicitor leave, I wanted to run after him.

  When we were alone, the grandfather, pausing between breaths, said, “I wanted just two things: to see you, Valerie, and to see the return of my own bird this spring, the bird I call Hylocichla guttata pritchardi. You are here, and as to the bird, I have no hope to hang on long enough for my little thrush.” He heaved a great sigh. “The best I can hope for is that I may live to see the flycatchers’ return, for they will soon be here.”

  For a moment I forgot my troubles, for the little flycatchers that hopped about our garden were my favorites. “Do your flycatchers have long forked tails, like trains on ball gowns?” I asked.

  “No, no. Forked tails to be sure, but short. Tell me what yours are like.”

  “Reddish on top with a black cap and tail feathers three or four times longer than their bodies. They’re friendly, you know. They fly about me when I’m in the hammock.” Suddenly I stopped, horrified. I had seen no hammock at the Pritchards’.

  The grandfather noticed my hesitation. “What is it, child?”

  I saw that he was having a more difficult time breathing. Before I could stop myself I said, “I think you would be better with more pillows to raise you up a bit.” Believing for a moment I was back in the hospital, I reached over and adjusted the pillows.

  There was a silence, and I worried that I had gone too far. At last he said, “Yes, that is better.” His look, sharp as an arrow, went right through me. “I’ve never known you to write a word about birds in your letters,” he said. “Or anything else about the countryside down there, except to complain of the bugs and the heat.”

  Quickly I said, “It is hot and there are lots of bugs. We have to shake out our shoes each morning because of spiders and scorpions, but there are beetles as green as jade and wonderful bright-red dragonflies nearly as large as airplanes.”

  “You sound as if you liked Africa.” He was staring at me.

  I remembered I was Valerie and quickly said, “Oh, no. I couldn’t wait to leave.”

  “Really? Well, you will have to tell me more about this country you dislike so much. I must rest now. Let me see you after your supper. But first come here for a moment.”

  Trembling, I crept close to him. He ran his hand over my hair and touched my cheek. I had thought his touch would be harsh, but it was gentle. “Not what I expected,” he murmured, and closed his eyes.

  Mr. Grumbloch had left. A young maid, who said her name was Ellie, led me along the hall and into a bedroom very unlike the grandfather’s, for this room was papered in a bright floral print, and the pale light of the February afternoon was streaming through two large windows. A fire glowed in the fireplace, warming the room.

  Ellie’s hair, which lay like two gold petals on either cheek, was fastened into a neat knot. She had wide-open blue eyes, as if she were astonished at everything she saw. “Here we are, Miss. I hope everything is suitable. Your grandfather had it all fixed up for you. There’s a bath next door, and I’ve filled the tub with hot water. Your clothes are unpacked and tucked away in the drawers.” Ellie was young, not yet twenty, I guessed. She said, “You have such pretty things, Miss. It was a pleasure to unpack them.” She clasped her hand over her mouth. “I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn, Miss.” She put a serious look on her face and added, “You have only to ring if the fire needs tending to. Dinner will be at seven.”

  When she left, I looked about. There was a little desk with notepaper and pens laid out. A comfortable chair was drawn up to the fireplace. Books had been set out on a shelf; some of the titles, Dickens and Trollope, were my own favorites and had been a part of our modest library at home. Nothing could be cozier or more pleasant. For just a moment I was sorry I wasn’t Valerie. How satisfying it would have been to have such a room for one’s own. I allowed myself a little daydream. What if the grandfather did not die? What if he got better and I could live in the little room instead of an orphanage? Or if not that, perhaps he would let me work about the house like the young maid did. It was only a dream, for he would surely have me arrested as an imposter.

  When I had had my bath, I put on yet one more of Valerie’s dresses, and after wandering first in one wrong direction and then another, I found the stairway. Burker was waiting for me. Looking over his shoulder from time to time
to be sure I had not wandered off, he led me to the dining room. As he seated me, I heard a slight groan as his crippled fingers lifted the weight of the massive wooden chair.

  Burker disappeared. I sat alone at a long table that could have seated two dozen people. The young man who had taken our coats brought one course after another and then embarrassed me horribly by standing in the room while I ate. Once I tried to get him to leave. “Thank you very much, Arthur,” I said. “I’ll be quite all right alone.”

  He merely turned red and averted his eyes. He stuck to his place as if he were the last soldier standing to protect the fort. I saw that he was as anxious to leave as I was to have him go, but it was his duty to stay.

  After dinner Burker said, “I believe your grandfather wishes to see you, Miss Valerie.” He led me up the stairway and into the grandfather’s room and then faded away, something he did very well.

  “Well, my dear, are you comfortable?” the grandfather asked. His voice was stronger and his eyes brighter.

  “Oh, yes. My room is so pretty.”

  He scowled, and the strands of red among his white whiskers seemed to glow like fire. In an angry voice he said, “I suppose I must ask how your parents are.”

  A longing grew in me to tell him the truth, but I worried at what the truth would do to him. What if upon hearing the news he threw up his hands and perished in front of me?

  “My parents are very well,” I said, and added under my breath, “and so they must be, for surely they are in heaven.”

  “Indeed.” He frowned, his bushy eyebrows meeting over his nose. “I have just today had a letter from them saying that there was considerable expense in suiting you up for this trip, buying fancy dresses and so forth. They are asking for money.” He stared at me.

  Eagerly I suggested, “You could sell all those dresses and send the money to them.” What a relief it would be to get rid of Valerie’s hateful clothes, which it tortured me to put on.

  “Sell them? You want new clothes? The latest fashion from London, I suppose. The African fashions are not good enough.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t want any fashionable clothes. Just one dress that would be all my own.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “All your own? What in the world do you mean?”

  I felt my cheeks burning. “I mean just one simple dress. Mother likes fashionable things, but I like plain things. I think they suit me better.”

  He stared quizzically at me for a bit and then said, “We’ll take care of that by and by. Now, you will have to sing for your supper. My world has dwindled to just this room and this bed. Though I know you don’t care for Africa, surely there must be one tale of the country you could tell me. I suppose there are lions and leopards and such?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. I told him how in the nighttime you could hear the lions. “It is as if Africa itself were speaking.” And then without thinking I began my story of the leopard and the duiker. I knew that Valerie would not have been walking about in the bush, so I said it had happened to a friend. I had not told the story to anyone before, so all the fear I had felt at that flash of menacing gold was fresh in my mind. As I told the story, my hands shook and my words rushed along as quickly as the leopard. When I had finished, I looked at the grandfather, and he was staring at me in a most alarming way.

  “What a frightening story,” he said. “You tell it as if it had happened to you.”

  Hastily I said, “Oh, no. It was my friend. My parents would never allow me to walk alone in the bush.”

  “Yes, I can quite see why. Who is this little friend of yours?”

  “Her parents were missionaries and had a hospital.” I stumbled over the words.

  “I would not have thought my son would have much to do with missionaries. What was the girl’s name?”

  “Rachel Sheridan,” I said, hearing my name spoken aloud for the first time in over a month.

  The grandfather stared at me. “Well, Rachel must be an interesting child. I would like to hear more of her. Now I think I must rest. Is there anything you would like?”

  “There is one thing. When I had my dinner, there was a young man who stayed in the room and watched me. It made me nervous.”

  “Oh, that is only Arthur, the new footman. He is just back from the war. Had a very bad time. He is the housekeeper Mrs. Bittery’s nephew, and needed work. Best he could do, no other jobs available. He is probably more nervous than you are. Still, sitting alone in that great dining room won’t do. I’ll tell Mrs. Bittery you will be having your dinners up here with me.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” I was not sure which would be worse, Arthur looming over my dinner or the grandfather with his sharp eyes watching my every move.

  “And you are not to call me ‘sir.’ I am your grandfather. Now I am very tired, child.”

  As I tiptoed out, I could hear his faint snores.

  Burker appeared as if by magic to announce, “There is a fire in the library, Miss.” He saw my confusion and led me a slow, stately march to the library. There were shelves all the way around the room, and every shelf was crowded with books. I had not thought so many books existed. I thought how happy the beetles would have been with such a feast. There was a desk, several big leather chairs, a wooden floor covered with faded rugs, and in front of the fireplace a sofa with soft pillows. The shelves stopped several feet short of the ceiling, leaving room for a row of busts of what I imagined must be famous gentlemen. Lamps cast little pools of light in the room, and the sound and smell of the fire reminded me of the fires the Kikuyu would make outside their huts when they roasted goats.

  Though the eyes of the famous gentlemen appeared to regard me with suspicion, I took a deep breath and picked out a book. It was Dickens’s Great Expectations, which I had never read. I curled up on the sofa and after a few minutes forgot all my troubles and thought only of the troubles of Pip. I must have fallen asleep, for I was suddenly aware of whispers at the doorway.

  “Children must have a bedtime,” Mrs. Bittery was saying.

  “Yes, but what is a suitable time?” Burker asked.

  Mrs. Bittery approached me and cleared her throat. She was a plump woman whose softness was not unlike the couch pillows. Her face was round with small round eyes and a little pursed mouth. It was like the faces of people I had made when I first learned to draw. Her hair was braided and wrapped neatly around her head. She wore a long gray dress with a starched white collar and cuffs, and pinned to her waist was a set of keys. “Come along, Miss Valerie,” she said. “I don’t know what you have been used to in the jungle, but we keep early hours here.”

  She was so solemn that even in my misery I couldn’t keep from mischief. “We go to bed early as well, but the roaring of the lions as they pace outside our windows keeps us awake.”

  She gave me a suspicious look and sent me off with Ellie.

  When at last I was alone, I looked out across the snowy fields. The sky was bright with stars, but they were unfamiliar. The Southern Cross had been snatched from the sky. In all the darkness I could not see one familiar thing.

  SEVEN

  In the morning I was awakened by something so welcome, I leaped out of bed and ran to the window. For a moment I thought I might be back at Tumaini. The sun was coming through the window, the first bit of sun I had seen in England. But it was still England. Ellie appeared to help me with my dressing. I wondered what Mother and Father would have made of having someone hand me shoes and stockings and fasten my dress. When I protested that I could do all that perfectly well, Ellie opened her eyes wider and, looking hurt, said, “I’m sure I’m trying my best, Miss,” so I could only endure her help.

  Then I asked, “Have you nothing better to do, Ellie?”

  “You was why I was hired in the first place, Miss. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be back home mucking out the stable and feeding the chickens. You was heaven-sent, Miss. I’m grateful, I’m sure. Your coming allowed me to better myself.”

  I wondered wha
t Ellie would think if she knew feeding the chickens had been one of my jobs at Tumaini. “You lived on a farm then, Ellie?”

  “Oh, that would be a fancy name for it, Miss. We had a plow horse and an old cow and the chickens I spoke of, but the bit of land is only big enough to feed us. We couldn’t stay at all, but that Mr. Pritchard looks the other way when we can’t meet the rent.”

  “He owns your farm?”

  “Oh, he owns all the land hereabouts. And if you had to have a landlord, you couldn’t have a better one. Will that be all, Miss?” She poked the fire into bright flames. “Breakfast will be waiting for you, Miss.”

  Burker guided me by slow, measured steps, making a kind of parade of two into the dining room, where a row of silver dishes held enough food to feed a village. “Arthur will assist you, Miss Valerie,” Burker said, and disappeared. There was Arthur standing, red-faced, looking as if he would much rather face the German army. Nervously he lifted the cover of one silver dish after another.

  “Who is going to eat all this?” I whispered to him.

  He looked about as if he had been instructed not to speak to me and said in a low voice, “What you don’t eat goes back to the kitchen, Miss.”

  “And in the kitchen?”

  He shrugged. “We all have a turn, and what can’t be saved goes to the pigs.”

  “It’s a terrible waste.”