Today's Embrace (45 page)

It was February, Rhodesia's late summer, and the first bloom of dawn was already hot. A yellow stain bled into the paler blue sky above the sunburnt veld that yawned toward the ominous Matopos Hills.

An eerie silence cloaked Dr. Jakob van Buren's Bulawayo Mission. A crocodile slipped with a whoosh down the bank into the dark waters, and some pelicans broke the stillness by flapping their wings and flying
north. A monkey chattered uneasily and left its branches to disappear deeper into the still dark trees.

Evy Chantry awakened in the round, beehive-shaped hut with thick wheat-colored thatch, and for a moment she peered into the first light of dawn, listening. For the last two months she'd lived here with Rogan, though for much of that time he'd been coming and going, sometimes not showing up for several days at a time. Their marriage, thought Evy with grief, was teetering on the brink of disaster.
Oh, Father God, how could something so wonderful have ended like this? Why did it happen?

Down deep in her heart she knew the answer. She had thought it necessary to deceive him because of her lack of trust in him to make the right decision. Wounded, Rogan could not,
would not
, forgive her. She'd had her reasons to keep the matter of her baby to herself.
Her
baby. Perhaps that idea had been part of the problem? Although she'd never even realized it, her emotions had settled on the idea that this baby was solely
her
responsibility; in keeping it secret, the baby had wrongly become hers, not
ours
.

At the time, her reasons to keep the news from him had made sense to her. If not right, at least she'd felt her reasons were justified. Rogan was controlling. He wouldn't have let her come otherwise. She scowled. She was used to doing as she wanted. But Rogan insisted she had failed to trust in his character and leadership.

She sighed. Could they ever move beyond this? she wondered.

She remained in bed, listening. For what? She didn't know. Everything had grown so still. That was it, so
unusually
still. For the two months she'd been here, each new day came alive with the riot of squawking birds, squealing monkeys, and the trumpeting of a small herd of elephants that came down to the river for their morning wallow. But this morning they'd all quite suddenly become silent.

She continued to listen, scarcely breathing. Her hand reached across the bed, but of course, it was empty. Rogan had left with Parnell and Derwent for the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. He'd said he'd return in two weeks. Three weeks had now come and gone, and there was no word.

Surely he would return soon. She missed him terribly, but a rush of hurtful memories also flooded her heart. The lack of forgiveness between them had become a wall as high and thick as any ancient ruin at Zimbabwe.

The low murmur of the Khami River came in through the bungalow window. She'd resisted open windows in the hut to the bitter end, but there'd been little choice about that, since all of Jakob's bungalows were constructed this way due to the heat. For that matter, if anyone wanted to attack the mission station and burn it to the ground, a windowpane wouldn't stop them. Nothing would, “Except God,” Dr. Jakob had interjected when they'd discussed the matter with Rogan. Rogan, too, had frowned about the open window.

“We are all here as secure as the will of our sovereign heavenly Father,” Jakob liked to say. Those words fitly spoken like apples of gold in settings of silver usually quieted everyone down, even Arcilla.

True, indeed. Evy quoted Psalm 34:7 aloud: “The angel of the L
ORD
encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them.” She wasn't thinking of attackers, but nasty bugs. She wasn't as hysterical about them as Arcilla, but neither was she as stalwart as Darinda. The “itchy” insects were a ghastly horror. She frowned, feeling sorry for herself, and scratching her arm. It was time to get up. She wanted her hot sweet tea. Thank God for Mrs. Croft!

She tossed aside the thin coverlet and sat up. The windless morning grew lighter and hotter. Her head ached again. She was listless. She felt as though she weighed a ton. She reached her palms to her swollen belly and prayed for them both.
Both
of them? And her husband and father?

Rogan will return soon. No use being a dullard, Evy Chantry. You're here in this condition, my dear, because it's exactly what you wanted. So get up and be of some use around here
.

The sunlight fell across the worn, bare, hand-planed table of heavy mukwa wood, where her hairbrush, hand mirror, and personal items were arranged. Her Bible was there too, still open to where she'd been
reading last night through the Old Testament book of Joel: “The field is wasted, the land mourns.”

Rhodesia was undergoing a terrible drought, an increase in locusts, and a cattle disease. According to Dr. Jakob the indunas blamed it on the rule of the white man. The spirit gods of the Matopos were not happy.

Evy looked down cautiously before stepping onto the woven mat rug that covered the cow dung floor that had been polished into a smooth, rock hardness.

She walked to the window and looked out.

The clear light told her it must be nearing six o'clock. She breathed in the faint dawn breeze that whispered through the trees and tall grasses growing along the river's bank. The whitewashed walls of the mission reflected the dull yellow glow of the brightening sunrise.

Evy smiled, certain she would never get used to living among lions, elephants, crocodiles, all manner of poisonous snakes and spiders. Rhodesia was a new world, and aside from her personal difficulties, she was quite happy to get to know her mother's cousin, a dear saintly man who bade her call him “Uncle Jakob.” She was thrilled to do so, to be here, though she longed for Rogan's return, and sometimes the hardships of the mission station made her sigh for the soft home comforts she'd taken for granted and left in Grimston Way.

Great birds, whose names she had yet to learn, circled and flew in shadows across the mellowing sky. It was the horizon that continued to hold her attention now. There was a dark casting look to it, like a strange cloud moving toward them. According to what Dr. Jakob told her yesterday, the rainy season was not due for some time yet. Could there be grass fires somewhere?

The door to Dr. Jakob's bungalow opened, and he stepped out onto his
stoep
to begin what she knew would be his typical busy day. Evy watched him with a certain family pride. It seemed strange to know she even had a family member.

Jakob carried his scarred leather medical bag in one brown hand, while using the other to place a little pair of glass spectacles on his aristocratic nose. He stepped down to the swept earth to begin his tour of patients before the family-style breakfast in the common room, where they congregated for meals, fellowship, prayer, and Bible study.

Evy leaned out and smiled a welcome.

“Morning, Jakob,” she called cheerfully.

“You're just the pretty face I want to see this morning. Mrs. Croft, that dear woman, is feeling her arthritis today. Can you come down to the medical ward and assist me before breakfast? Do you feel well enough?”

She sighed but smiled cheerfully to him. Any idea that she might feel listless would garner too much attention when others needed his time far more than she.

“I'll be right over,” she called.

Evy let the reed curtain fall back into place and turned away from the window to hurry and dress.

The fashionable tight-fitting sleek skirts and bodices of London fashion were simply not practical here, not that she could wear them now anyway. She wore a simple light blue cotton top that hung wide and loose over a full skirt that reached just above the ankles. She was far from dressing in fashion, she thought wryly. Out here there were few European women, and they dressed as they pleased. Darinda wore riding habits, and the wives and daughters of the colonial farmers wore a hodge-podge of things they'd brought. Only Arcilla retained high fashion, and much of that was to her personal detriment. She was always tearing her fancy skirts or breaking a heel on her shoes, and then wailing about how long it took to get the new clothes she sent for from Capetown.

Evy found a clean pocketed apron that slipped over her head and tied it in the back.
I almost look like a nurse
, she thought, pleased. She brushed and braided her tawny, thick hair, then pinned the braids out of the way.

Some ten minutes later she came out of the hut to confront the hot morning.

Near the huts, the once eight-foot-tall poinsettia bushes, more like small trees, were dried up and dying. The bougainvillea were stunted and struggling to survive the drought.

Mrs. Croft came from what she called the scullery hut, bearing a mug of black tea. Despite what Jakob had said about her being a bit under the weather, Mrs. Croft looked as robust as always, tall and big-boned, her iron gray hair brushed back from her oblong face into a no-nonsense bun.

“Pah! You'll not be going among the sick and dying without the bracing bit of English tea.”

Evy drank the tasty brew and placed the cup back on the small, round tray. “Is Alice up?”

“I'm bringing her some tea now. Alice is to lend me a hand in the garden. That corn's shriveling up like a prune. We need to get it picked this morning. It never did grow well.” She shaded her eyes and looked up at the sun. “What we need the Lord to do is bring us some rain.”

“Not this time of year,” Evy said sadly, looking about at the sparse green. “According to Dr. Jakob there wasn't any rain last year in the rainy season. The river is dangerously low.”

“Well, we've got to get down to the garden and start picking that corn before it's so tough we can't eat it. Never thought I'd see the day when Alice would join me in the standing corn! She was always too hoity-toity for muddying her hands. I'll have to admit marriage to Derwent was a good thing for 'em both.”

It was true. There was a change in Alice. Evy had noticed it as soon as they met. The silly, mincing girl with her nose in the air of some years back had matured into a woman with three growing children, all of whom, a boy and two freckle-faced girls, were already reading the Bible and saying how “good and kind” Jesus was to them. How time and the challenges of life changed things! Evy thought.

Derwent's influence on Alice and his children was commendable indeed.

“The good Lord knows what He's about,” Mrs. Croft nodded again. “All those events we worried ourselves sick about are far behind us now.”

Yes, now we have new problems
, Evy thought.
Worse problems. Oh, Rogan …

Evy managed a paper smile. “So you think I did well to marry Rogan Chantry after all?”

Mrs. Croft sniffed. She shook out the dregs from the teacup and watched the dry dust rush to lick it up.

“He's gone off and left you. And you far along too.” She eyed Evy's waistline as though weighing and measuring the growing baby.

Evy kept smiling. She knew Mrs. Croft worried about her, and Rogan. Although Mrs. Croft wouldn't admit it, she had a growing affection for Rogan and also worried about how he'd taken Evy's “fib.” “I told you and told you, you should have let him know you was going to have a child.”

She said to Mrs. Croft, “It can also be said that Derwent has left Alice, too—
and
three children. Rogan's due back any day.”

“So you say. He was supposed to be back from those ancient ruins in two weeks.”

Evy threw back her shoulders. “I'll come down and help in the garden later too.” She turned and walked toward the medical ward, where the convalescents awaited attention.

“You come, but you'll sit in the shade.”

Evy walked the path toward the ward, her limp hardly noticeable, but she weighed more now, being pregnant, and her back ached all the more. She sighed.
I feel like I'm a hundred
.

If she were fair with Rogan, she would admit that her success had a great deal to do with his faithfulness to her since their marriage back at Grimston Way. He had stayed beside her for months, working with her on the special exercises to strengthen her back and legs. It hadn't been until he believed she was feeling well that he'd gone to Zimbabwe.

That gold Zimbabwean bird
, she thought again.
How intriguing
. If she'd been able, she would have liked to go there herself and see the mysterious ruins. Was Sir Julien right? Was Zimbabwe the secret place that held Henry Chantry's gold deposit? An ancient mine, perhaps?

Evy rubbed the small frown away from between her brows and walked on, determined not to allow Rogan's absence to upset her. She must stay happy and in good health for their baby.

Dr. Jakob's thirty-bed medical ward was ahead, shaded by trees. The patients, mostly Shona, were suffering from malaria. Their families had brought them here and stayed, living on the mission. The families all helped work the big garden and orchard to supply maize and other vegetables for both the mission and the Christian Shona.

The ward, the little chapel with its white cross, and the attendant buildings, all with sturdy thatch roofs, stood some distance from the private huts, while the rust-colored Matopos Hills gazed down sullenly on the compound.

The large vegetable gardens with sections of standing corn stretched down past “Jakob's well” toward the low banks of the shrinking river. The growing but stunted corn stood with stalks and leaves curling in the morning heat.

Already some of the Christian Shona, considered part of “Jakob's family,” were headed toward the field with primitive garden tools and buckets for sparse watering.

Below the corn, the red-brown earth was shaded by the dying leaves from pumpkins just beginning to show orange. The pumpkins were small. Nothing like the big round ones they grew in Grimston Way, where water was plentiful in the growing season.