The Diamond Hunter Read online

  That promise had burned in her heart since she was a child. And Clem had convinced herself that if she never uttered a word about his death, then it wasn’t true. The childish notion had stuck and she’d clung to it – until this moment, when a direct question from a dark-eyed youngster forced her to speak a truth she had never accepted.

  ‘He died while you were with him?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘No. Apparently his death occurred not long after my family brought me back here.’

  ‘You don’t believe he is dead, Miss Grant?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I believe, other than that I feel in my soul that I would have sensed something if he had died. I can’t shake the sense that a mistake has been made, and news came to us of the wrong man.’ She gave a soft sigh. ‘I’ve promised myself that one day I will make the journey to find his grave, if one exists. Until now, the time has not been right.’

  ‘Is now the right time?’

  ‘It is, Dolly. I’m old enough, stubborn enough, determined enough, and I have the means to do so.’

  It was uplifting to hear Dolly laugh. ‘And what shall you do if you find that grave?’

  Clem shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. Weep, no doubt, as I have kept a little flame burning in my heart that he is still alive. The man is Zulu and he needs a proper Zulu farewell. If I can find a grave, then I can do that much for him, because he did so much for me.’

  Dolly smiled. ‘He will know you have done this for him.’

  ‘I think he will. He made me a promise that he would always follow me.’

  Dolly grasped the poignancy of the moment and let a small silence hang. Clementine cleared her throat of its tightness, feeling briefly elated that she had made this decision; it felt real. People would try to talk her out of it but nothing and no one could now. Her fortune would be hers in a few months as they turned the corner on the new year; she would be thirty in January. No more elders making decisions for her. To be finally and wholly in control of her own fortune felt important. And this decision was part of that, because no other adult could wield any power over her.

  ‘Back to you, Dolly. Now, you may need to do a couple of years of service with the Welsh family, but I believe we can negotiate it so that by sixteen you can begin your nurse’s training. How does that sound?’

  Dolly blinked in disbelief. ‘You can do this?’

  ‘I can,’ she replied confidently, her mind already considering which arms would need to be twisted; she gave herself a mental nudge to set aside some money for Dolly’s care and training. Dolly would be wasted in service but she’d need support throughout her nursing education.

  ‘Oh, Miss Grant, is that a promise? I will work very, very hard with my family to please them.’

  Clementine crossed her heart. ‘I promise. And I shall arrange it before I leave for Cape Town.’ She picked up her final parcel. ‘I thought you might like this – it’s a couple of ribbons to enjoy wearing on your days off once you start work.’

  Dolly held the tiny paper-wrapped parcel next to her heart. ‘I hope I deserve this.’

  Clementine felt her emotions soar for this delightful child. ‘You deserve it and so much more, but especially your education. You are going to make a fine nurse one day, Dolly, and you’ll make us all proud. Patients will be lucky it’s you who takes care of them.’ She hugged the slim girl, loving the warmth of her silken skin against hers.

  ‘Dolly is not my real name,’ the girl said.

  Clementine pulled back to look at her closely. ‘I . . . I didn’t know that. What is your name?’

  ‘I was baptised as Sarah.’

  ‘Sarah,’ she breathed. ‘It suits you. Why Dolly?’

  ‘The family that my mother was in service to before she died used to jest that I looked like a little golliwog.’

  Clementine blinked with guilt on behalf of that family.

  ‘Golly turned to Dolly and . . . well, no one bothered with Sarah any more.’

  ‘That changes from today. I shall insist. It may take a while for people to get used to it, but when you go to Wales you will be known only as Sarah. And one day you will be Nurse Sarah.’ This made the girl smile and Clementine felt her spirits flutter with hope and ambition for this sweet young woman. ‘Don’t miss your meal. I’ll see you in a few weeks and maybe I’ll have some news for you then.’

  Dolly must have thanked her a dozen times before she finally let go. Clementine’s heart felt full.

  As she pondered the lives of the three youngsters, she became aware of Sally watching her. Clementine stood, smiling.

  ‘You can’t save them all, Miss Grant.’ It was said kindly.

  She grinned. ‘Oh, but I can try.’

  15

  Will Axford sat in the Grand Divan at Simpson’s in the Strand and took a slow breath of pleasure. It was a relief to escape the shoppers with their bags and boxes, the day-trippers with their wide-eyed wonder, the startled horses, the lurching carriages and the general noise, dirt and dust of Piccadilly and the adjoining busy Regent Street. But even with all this activity, he still preferred the anonymity of the West End to the ever-present scrutiny at the Royal Exchange in the City’s financial district, where he conducted his business.

  A copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was not far from his reach and he hoped he might be able to finish the story he was enjoying before his guest arrived.

  ‘You look like a parched man finding the proverbial oasis, son,’ said a passing patron, a glowing cigar hanging from his lip.

  Will stood, feeling Sherlock Holmes slip from his thoughts. He recognised the man as an old acquaintance of his father. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Barden. Did I give that impression?’ He sounded innocent but knew the old codger was spot-on.

  ‘I thought you young bucks liked to hang around the City – close to the action.’

  He nodded with a smile. ‘It’s the action I’m trying to escape, actually, sir. Most of my peers feed off it, but I like to head into the West End, well away from the bedlam that Lloyd’s of London seems to elicit.’

  ‘At least we don’t still have the royal wedding to contend with. All that bunting and constant cleaning of the streets and roadblocks and crowds.’

  Will thought Piccadilly felt much like that now, but he still preferred its more innocent unbridled commercialism to the cunning, hard-nosed business world that he was part of.

  ‘I gather she is tough from those who’ve met her.’ Barden said. ‘I also hear she’s witty and worldly but also cold.’

  ‘They might be reading strength as chilliness. I admire her.’

  Barden looked back at him, incredulous. ‘Have you heard there’s now a ladies-only golf tournament at Royal Lytham?’ he remarked.

  Will’s face creased in a smile. ‘Ladies will enter Oxford for the first time later this month, sir.’

  The old man gave a tsk-ing sound. ‘Whatever is the world coming to?’

  ‘Finding its balance, I suspect, sir.’

  ‘You mean you support all this suffrage nonsense?’ Unruly eyebrows, streaked with grey, crawled together like friendly caterpillars.

  He gave a slight shrug. ‘It’s inevitable . . . and, I think, wise.’

  ‘Good grief, man! Does your father know?’ Barden sounded genuinely worried for Will, who laughed.

  ‘So long as I keep making sound decisions about insurance, I think he’s relatively happy with me.’

  ‘Going well?’

  ‘Yes, sir. More business than we can handle.’

  ‘Very good to hear, son. I guess you’ll be funding ships regularly to the Australian colony now?’

  Will frowned.

  ‘Gold in some wretched place I can’t pronounce.’

  ‘Ah, Kalgoorlie. Yes, indeed. That’s all underway, sir. Several ships have left with miners, and we’ll be insuring them on their return, too – hopefully with gold in their cargo holds.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent. Well, I’ll leave you to it.
I can recommend the mock turtle soup and the baked cod.’

  Will opted not to tell his companion that he detested both. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, Mr Barden, sir.’

  ‘Call me Geoffrey. Toot-toot, William.’ He wandered away, a billow of sweet-smelling cigar smoke trailing behind him.

  So much for anonymity, Will thought. He wasn’t looking forward to today’s luncheon. Mock turtle soup aside, it could turn into an awkward conversation with a man he wanted to like but had long ago found to be a manipulative sort, plus his financial situation could be flaky. According to his father, who regularly remarked on it, Will was showing an uncanny intuition for sensing potential bad debt.

  ‘Welcome back, Mr Axford,’ the sommelier cooed, arriving at his table. ‘May I fetch you something to drink while you wait for your guest?’ He offered the wine list.

  Will nodded. ‘Something light, refreshing?’

  ‘How about a flute of Crémant de Bourgogne, sir? It is predominantly pinot noir but you’ll find it fresh and fruity.’

  ‘Very good.’ Will checked his fob watch. He still had nearly fifteen minutes of quiet time and hoped he might make it through without further interruption.

  He had his back to the arched entrance of the Grand Divan, which got its name from its modest beginnings as a cigar-smoking room. Today the establishment was better known as the preeminent venue for British chess players, who half a century prior had reclined on sofas to play while messengers in top hats were sent to despatch news of their latest moves. Today the Grand Divan served as one of the nation’s top restaurants: roasts were a specialty, no matter what old man Barden claimed.

  Will was sitting in the position that Charles Dickens had favoured before him. Should he mention that to his guest? He was from new money – plenty of it, too – and impressed by that sort of snippet.

  ‘Am I late, Will?’ A voice disturbed his faraway thoughts.

  He looked up, surprised. ‘No, Mr Grant, not at all. I was early.’

  ‘As I’ve mentioned before, please call me Reggie. You make me feel like my father otherwise, and those are boots I can’t possibly fill.’ Reginald Grant smiled with that infectious grin of his. Seeing Grant look so jaunty, Will was reminded that Reggie had survived his first brush with insolvency. He wondered whether the rumour of a second could be correct.

  ‘Reggie it is. How was the trip down?’

  Grant lifted a hand with casual carelessness. ‘I’m at the London house for a few days. You should come over. I’m having Henry Irving and some others for dinner tomorrow.’

  Will smiled. He was impressed, and no doubt was meant to be. Irving was the darling of London’s theatre scene.

  ‘A delightful, exquisitely beautiful new starlet called Minnie Ashley may be joining us, along with sundry other stage folk.’

  The waiter arrived to save Will an answer, and he allowed his guest to fuss over the choice of wine and then scan the menu. Will quickly settled for a simple roast chicken, preferring the house specialty. He kept the talk over luncheon small and unimportant, politely inquiring after the niece he knew Reggie Grant to be proud of.

  ‘Oh, she’s the most precious of all the wonderful things that surround me.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘I’ve told you the story of finding her in Africa, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes, an astonishing tale.’

  ‘What a time it was.’ He shook his head in awed memory.

  ‘Sounds rather heroic,’ Will remarked, only half facetiously.

  Reggie brushed aside what he clearly took to be a compliment with a shake of his head and the final mouthful of his baked cod. ‘Our time there was so limited. I knew her grandmother was dying and she did just that a month after we returned. At least they got to know each other again, although of course it was another great loss to the child. She’s resilient, though. Grown up to be a fine, fiercely intelligent woman. She seems to know something about everything, I swear it.’

  ‘How old is Clementine now?’

  Grant frowned. ‘She will be thirty next birthday.’

  An eyebrow rose of its own accord and Will wished he hadn’t shown his thought quite so expressively.

  ‘I know, I know what you’re thinking, Will. Still a spinster, but I have not been able to bring myself to marry her off simply to heed social norms.’

  It wasn’t what Will was thinking. He had been wondering at the youngster growing up with Uncle Reggie as her main influence.

  Reggie spoke on, oblivious. ‘I think you’re right. My father’s ability to stand apart from the conservatism of his time – and even our era, which is still so constrained by social conformity – runs thick in my blood too. As for Clementine, she’s nothing short of brutally independent, and she can be because she is astoundingly wealthy in her own right. She doesn’t have to make a marriage for security. My girl will marry only for love, and in this she and I are in wholesome agreement. I want whomever she falls for to worship her, as I have for years now.’

  Will found himself smiling nonetheless, enjoying the middle-aged client’s display of tenderness. He’d not seen that in Reggie before. He now found himself more interested by talk of the young woman.

  ‘How does she fill her days?’

  ‘Not sewing or running a household, I can assure you,’ Reggie bleated, as if he’d run out of patience. ‘She chairs two committees for charities in which she has a profound interest and investment. She is patron of a small London orphanage but is also busy founding one of her own up in the north using her own funds. That’s what is so admirable. She doesn’t wait for others to do anything. Most would hold fundraisers and lobby the wealthy but Clementine has set her own course. And, if that isn’t enough, she has a keen interest in jewellery. I swear she’d like to design some. I know she’s angling towards it, maybe doing some study overseas.’

  That surprised him. ‘How fascinating.’

  Reggie swirled the contents of his wineglass; there was only one quarter left and he was on his third. ‘Mmm, I suppose. It comes from her days in Africa.’

  ‘You said she was a little girl when you collected her.’

  ‘Yes, seven. But she’d spent almost all of her life running around the diamond fields. If the Jews of Hatton Garden would only let her in, my niece would learn to sort diamonds quicker than any of their sons, I swear it.’

  ‘She does sound intriguing.’

  Reggie dug in his pocket for a silver case, withdrew a slim cigar and offered one to Will. ‘Do you mind?’

  Will shook his head. ‘I won’t, though, thank you.’

  ‘Here,’ Reggie said, slipping out a small photograph that was tucked into the case. ‘Here she is. This was taken a few months ago in the gardens at Woodingdene.’ He handed Will the photograph.

  Will regarded the close-up of a clear-skinned young woman whose striking features sat symmetrically upon a round face. Her eyes appeared larger than most, and while he couldn’t tell their colour from the sepia image, they seemed to look directly at him . . . into him. Her gaze was not intense so much as wistful, and only the vague hint of a smile caught at the edges of the wide bow of her lips. It was as if the photographer had caught her in an amusing but private thought. The wind was obviously tugging at her bun, one slim arm reaching behind to clutch at it, while straggly wisps of what could be blonde or reddish hair were dangling carelessly around her chin, giving her a wanton look of being newly stirred from her bed. The notion provoked a rush of embarrassment and Will found himself recovering with a light cough. He reached for a glass of water.

  Reggie waved away his cigar smoke. ‘Sorry, old chap.’

  Will shook his head. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘She’s a gem, isn’t she?’ Reggie nodded towards the small photograph, which Will now handed back.

  ‘Very lovely. She must be in high demand at society events.’

  Reggie emitted a soft snort. ‘Clementine can be contrary about these things. Sociable when she chooses to be and a most capable
and charming hostess. And other times, she is quite a loner.’

  ‘Her terms?’ Will smiled.

  ‘Exactly. Capricious but addictive, you could say. I think she’s received maybe a dozen proposals of marriage over the years but not one has been even close to being successful.’

  ‘Well, she’s obviously looking for someone specific.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s looking at all, Will, that’s the problem. Well, not a problem, actually. I feel blessed that she’s still with me. I’m in no hurry for her to marry, but at the same time I know she must.’

  ‘You sound very close.’

  Reggie took a long, slow drag on his cigar and took his time to exhale the smoke casually before answering. ‘Inseparable since she arrived back in England. I remember how she hurt herself on the ship’s journey. She wasn’t a good sailor and was feeling nauseous. There wasn’t much I could do for her then, especially as I must have seemed like a stranger. I recall she stumbled, hit her head. A bruise came up on her forehead and one of those beautiful eyes of hers turned black for a week. She became vague for the seven days during which she sickened and felt frightened. I was her constant and she learned not to feel scared of me – it was during that voyage we found first companionship, then friendship and finally a kinship. That has, over the years, developed into a love that I am sure is as deep as any father and daughter might feel. I would die for her.’

  Will felt moved by the passion in Reggie’s words. It was a helpful glimpse of the man he’d not previously thought had this sort of depth.

  ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her some time.’

  ‘You should visit us up north. Come and see Woodingdene Estate – far more fun than a dinner with actors!’