‘The White Prince’. He will have all he needs, all he wants, fresh meat every day, fresh straw every night. I love my animals, you know. They are my family, and this lion of yours, he will be my favourite son. Have no fear, young man, I promise you that he will never be hungry again.” He put his hand on his heart. “As God is my witness, I promise it.”
Bertie looked up into the Frenchman’s face. It was a kind face, not smiling, yet earnest and trustworthy. But even so, it did not make Bertie feel any better.
“There, you see,” said Bertie’s mother. “He’ll be happy, and that’s all that matters, Bertie, isn’t it?”
Bertie knew that there was no point in begging. He knew now that the lion could never survive on his own in the wild, that he would have to go with the Frenchman. There was nothing else for it.
That night as they lay in the dark together side by side, Bertie made him a last promise. “I will find you,” he whispered. “Always remember that I will find you. I promise I will.”
The next morning the Frenchman shook hands with Bertie on the veranda and said goodbye. “He’ll be fine, don’t you worry. And one day you must come to France and see my circus, Le Cirque Merlot. It is the best circus in all of France.” Then they left, the white lion in a wooden crate rocking from side to side in the back of the Frenchman’s wagon. Bertie watched until the wagon disappeared from view.
A few months later, Bertie found himself on a ship steaming out of Cape Town, bound for England and school and a new life. As the last of Table Mountain vanished in a heat haze, he said goodbye to Africa and was not at all unhappy. He had his mother with him, for the time being at least. And after all, England was nearer France than Africa was, much nearer.
The old lady drank her tea and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’m always doing that,” she said. “I’m always letting my tea go cold.” The dog scratched his ear, groaning with the pleasure of it, but eyeing me all the time.
“Is that the end then?” I asked.
She laughed and put down her cup. “I should say not,” she said. And then she went on, picking a tea leaf off the tip of her tongue. “Up till now it’s been just Bertie’s story. He told it to me so often that I almost feel I was there when it happened. But from now on it’s my story too.”
“What about the white lion?” I had to know. “Did he find the white lion? Did he keep his promise?”
The old lady seemed suddenly clouded with sadness. “You must remember,” she said, putting a bony hand on mine, “that true stories do not always end just as we would wish them to. Would you like to hear the truth of what happened, or shall I make something up for you just to keep you happy?”
“I want to know what really happened,” I replied.
“Then you shall,” she said. She turned from me and looked out of the window again at the butterfly lion, still blue and shimmering on the hillside.
Whilst Bertie was growing up on his farm in Africa with his fence all around, I was growing up here at Strawbridge in this echoing cold cavern of a house with its deer park and its high wall all around. And I grew up, for the most part, alone. I too was an only child. My mother had died giving birth to me, and Father was rarely at home. Maybe that was why the two of us, Bertie and I, got on so well from the first moment we met. We had so much in common from the very start.
Like Bertie, I scarcely ever left the confines of my home, so I had few friends. I didn’t go to school either, not to start with. I had a governess instead, Miss Tulips – everyone called her “Nolips” because she was so thin-lipped and severe. She moved around the house like a cold shadow. She lived on the top floor, like Cook, and like Nanny. Nanny Mason – bless her heart – brought me up and taught me all the do’s and don’ts of life like all good nannies should. But she was more than just a nanny to me, she was a mother to me, and a wonderful one too, the best I could have had, the best anyone could have had.
My mornings were always spent at my studies with Nolips, but all the while I was looking forward to my afternoons out walking with Nanny Mason – except on Sundays, when I was allowed to be on my own all day, if Father wasn’t home for the weekend, which he usually wasn’t. Then I could fly my kites when it was fine, and read my books when it wasn’t. I loved my books –Black Beauty, Little Women, Heidi – I loved them all, because they took me outside the park walls, they took me all over the world. I met the best friends I ever had in those books – until I met Bertie, that is.
I remember it was just after my tenth birthday. It was Sunday and I was out flying my kites. But there wasn’t much wind, and no matter how hard I ran, I just couldn’t get even my best box kite to catch the wind and fly. I climbed all the way up Wood Hill, looking for wind. And there at the top I found it at last, enough to send my kite soaring. But then the wind gusted and my kite swirled away crazily towards the trees. I couldn’t haul it in in time. It caught on a branch and stuck fast in a high elm tree in amongst the rookery. The rooks flew out cawing in protest whilst I tugged at my line, crying in my fury and frustration. I gave up, sat down and howled. That was when I noticed a boy emerging from the shadow of the trees.
“I’ll get it down for you,” he said, and began to climb the tree. Easy as you like, he crawled along the branch, reached out and released my kite.
It floated down and landed at my feet. My best kite was torn and battered, but at least I had it back. Then he was down the tree and standing there in front of me.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I asked.
“I can mend it, if you like,” he said.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“Bertie Andrews,” he replied. He was wearing a grey school uniform, and one I recognised at once. From the lion gateway I had often watched them on their walks, two by two, blue school caps, blue socks.
“You’re from the school up the road, aren’t you?” I said.
“You won’t tell on me, will you?” His eyes were wide with sudden alarm. I saw then that his legs were scratched and bleeding.
“Been in the wars, have you?” I said.
“I’ve run away,” he went on. “And I’m not going back, not ever.”
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. In the holidays I live at my Auntie’s in Salisbury, but I don’t like it there.”
“Haven’t you got a proper home?” I said.
“’Course I have,” he replied. “Everyone has. But it’s in Africa.”
That whole afternoon we sat together on Wood Hill and he told me all about Africa, about his farm, about his waterhole, about his white lion and how he was somewhere in France now, in a circus and how he couldn’t bear to think about him. “But I’ll find him,” he said fiercely. “I’ll find him somehow.”