Anne Perry - Traitors Gate

“Oh yes,” Kreisler said quickly. “It is almost an understatement. Originally the king was lukewarm, and treated Stanley very offhandedly, but now he is the hero of the hour, studded with medals like a porcupine with quills, and feted like visiting royalty. Everyone is buzzing with excitement over news from Central Africa, and Stanley has but to turn up and he is cheered till people are hoarse. The king enjoys the reflected glory.” There was light in Kreisler’s blue eyes, laughter and pain at the same time.

Nobby asked the necessary question.

“Then why would he not return to Africa? He has left Belgium, so it cannot be that which is holding him.”

“Not at all,” Kreisler agreed. “He has fallen in love with Dolly Tennant.”

“Dolly Tennant! Did you say Dolly Tennant?” Nobby could scarcely believe her ears. “The society hostess? The painter?”

“The same.” Kreisler nodded. “And there has been a great change in her. She no longer laughs at him. It even seems she returns at least a good part of his regard. Times and fortunes have altered.”

“My goodness, haven’t they indeed,” she agreed.

That particular speculation continued no further because they were joined by Linus Chancellor and the tall woman Charlotte had remarked upon earlier. Closer to, she was even more unusual. Her face was curiously vulnerable and full of emotion, which did not detract in the slightest from the strength in it. It was not a weakness, but an ability to feel pain with more intensity than was common. It was the face of a person who would launch herself wholeheartedly into whatever she undertook. There was no caution in it, no withholding for the sake of safety.

Introductions were performed for everyone, and she was indeed Chancellor’s wife, as Charlotte had supposed.

Chancellor and Kreisler appeared to know each other, at least by repute.

“Recently back from Africa?” Chancellor asked politely.

“Two months ago,” Kreisler replied. “More recently than that, from Brussels and Antwerp.”

“Oh.” Chancellor’s face relaxed in a smile. “In the wake of the good Mr. Stanley?”

“By accident, yes.”

Chancellor was obviously amused. Probably he had also heard of King Leopold’s plans to conquer the Sudan. No doubt he had his sources of information every bit as immediate as Kreisler’s. Perhaps it was Kreisler himself. It occurred to Charlotte that it was more than likely.

Christabel Thorne took up the subject, looking first at Kreisler, then at Chancellor.

“Mr. Kreisler tells us he is more acquainted with the east of Africa and the new lands of Zambezia. He was about to tell us that the real tragedy of Africa does not lie in the west, nor in the Sudan, but he was prevented from elaborating by some turn of the conversation. I think to do with Mr. Stanley’s personal hopes.”

“For Africa?” Susannah Chancellor asked quickly. “I thought the king of the Belgians was building a railway.”

“I daresay he is,” Christabel returned. “But we were referring to his amorous intentions.”

“Oh! Dolly Tennant!”

“So we hear.”

“Hardly a tragedy for Africa,” Chancellor murmured. “Possibly even a relief.”

Charlotte was now quite sure he knew about Leopold and the cannibals.

But Susannah was genuinely interested. She looked at Kreisler seriously.

“What do you believe is Africa’s tragedy, Mr. Kreisler? You have not told us. If your regard is as deep as Miss Gunne indicates, you must care about it very much.”

“I do, Mrs. Chancellor,” he agreed. “But unfortunately that does not give me any power to affect it. It will happen regardless of anything I can do.”

“What will happen?” she persisted.

“Cecil Rhodes and his wagons of settlers will press further up from the Cape into Zambezia,” he answered, looking at her with intensity. “And one by one the native princes will make treaties they don’t understand and don’t intend to keep. We will settle the land, kill those who rebel, and there will be slaughter and subjection of God knows how many people. Unless, of course, the Germans beat us to it, driving westward from Zanzibar, in which case they will do the same, only worse-if past history is anything to judge from.”

“Rubbish!” Chancellor said with good humor. “If we settle Mashonaland and Matabeleland we can develop the natural resources there for everyone’s good, African and white alike. We can bring them proper medicine, education, trade, civilized laws and a code of society which protects the weak as well as the strong. Far from being Africa’s tragedy, it would be the making of it.”

Kreisler’s eyes were hard and bright, but he looked only momentarily at Chancellor, then turned to Susannah. She had been listening to him with rapt attention, not with agreement, but rather with growing anxiety.

“That’s not what you used to say.” She looked at Chancellor with a crease between her brows.

His smile had only the barest shadow behind the obvious affection. “Perceptions change, my dear. One becomes wiser.” He shrugged very slightly. “I now know a great deal that I did not two or three years ago. The rest of Europe is going to colonize Africa, whether we do or not. France, Belgium, Germany at least. And the Sultan of Turkey is nominally overlord of the Khedive of Egypt, with all that means to the Nile, and thus to the Sudan and Equatoria.”

“It means nothing at all,” Kreisler said abruptly. “The Nile flows northward. I’d be surprised if anyone in Equatoria had even heard of Egypt.”

“I am thinking of the future, Mr. Kreisler, not the past.” Chancellor was not in the least perturbed. “When the great rivers of Africa are among the world’s highways of trade. The time will come when we will ship the gold and diamonds, exotic woods, ivory and skins of Africa along those great waterways as easily as we now ship coal and grain along the Manchester ship canal.”

“Or the Rhine,” Susannah said thoughtfully.

“If you like,” Chancellor agreed. “Or the Danube, or any other great river you can think of.”

“But Europe is so often at war,” Susannah went on. “Over land, or religion, or any of a dozen other things.”

He looked at her, smiling. “My dear, so is Africa. The tribal chieftains are always fighting one another. That is one of the reasons why all our attempts to wipe out slavery kept on failing. Really, the benefits are immense, and the costs relatively minor.”

“To us, possibly,” Kreisler said sourly. “What about to the Africans?”

“To the Africans as well,” Chancellor answered him. “We shall bring them out of the pages of history and into the nineteenth century.”

“That is exactly what I was thinking.” Susannah was not convinced. “Transitions as sudden as that are not made without a terrible wrench. Maybe they don’t want our ways? We are forcing them upon a whole nation without taking their opinions into account at all.”

A spark of intense interest, even excitement, lit for a moment in Kreisler’s eyes, and then as quickly was masked, as if deliberately.

“Since they cannot conceive what we are talking about,” Chancellor said wryly, “they can hardly have an opinion!”

“Then we are deciding for them,” she pointed out.

“Naturally.”

“I am not certain we have the right to do that.”

Chancellor looked surprised, and somewhat derisive, but he held his tongue tactfully. Apparently no matter how eccentric his wife’s opinions, he did not wish to embarrass her publicly.

Beneath the surface argument he seemed to feel a confidence in her that overrode such things.

Nobby Gunne was looking at Kreisler. Christabel Thorne was watching everyone, each in turn.