The Fever Tree (23 page)

A boy came into the yard and delivered a note. It was from Anne. She had heard Dr. Matthews was in town and asked Frances to visit her at the hospital. It was such a long time since Frances had had a letter, let alone one from a friend, and she smiled as she read it, feeling her mood lift. She would visit Anne, but first she wanted to wash her clothes. She boiled more water and dissolved some soap powder in a tub, then washed her second dress, her drawers, and her petticoats, rinsed them thoroughly, wrung them out, and hung them up outside on the line to dry. She began on her nightdress, scrubbing at the bloodstains until they faded to a brown smudge, which was the best she could do. Seeing Edwin’s shirt and trousers crusted with blood, she washed them as well. When she had finished, she felt better able to face the world.

•   •   •

I
T
WAS
A
HOT
, dusty walk to the hospital. Frances weaved around piles of refuse, past tents where carcasses had been left outside to rot, stinking in the sun. Eventually she came out onto the main road. Two men, a European and a native, turned the same way. The sun burnt down overhead, and the red earth exhaled a shimmering heat. Men drove mule carts and ox wagons over the pitted tracks. When the vehicles rolled past they threw up eddies of dust which blanketed her in soft drifts of ocher snow, and she sneezed in dismay. There were no trees, and the shrubs were patchy and dry-leaved. Frances hadn’t thought to bring a parasol, and the sun, brutally hot, was beginning to burn a scarlet strip down the backs of her hands. She wiped her face with her last pure white handkerchief and grimaced at the dirt which came off with it. You needed an endless supply of clean linen in Kimberley.

Up ahead was a small iron building with the word “Police” painted on the outside. She stepped in to ask directions. As she did, a scream tore loose from somewhere inside—a mixture of rage and pain that made her palms sweat. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Two officers were holding on to something. A shape that convulsed with elastic energy. Feet scraped off walls and a bucket clattered across the floor. There was a flash of white cotton, and someone’s spittle flecked across her cheek. It was a woman. Not a native, but a European.

They had her pinned to the floorboards, a creamy mass of skirts.

“She’s a live one.”

“Watch her!”

“She’s like a cat. She’ll scratch your eyes out if you give her half a chance.”

A short, squat officer straddled the woman and began sliding his hands down around her ribs. She squirmed underneath him, and he gave a gurgled laugh.

“Oh, you like that, do you?”

She flipped her face around and saw Frances standing in the doorway. “Help me,” she mouthed.

And then, in a flash, she was out of their grip. The men grabbed at her dress, but her suppleness outwitted both of them. She dashed forwards, colliding off Frances’s shoulder and through the door. The officers tumbled out after her. One swiped at her on the
stoep
, snatching a handful of hair so she spun around in mid-air, and the other punched her heavily in the stomach. She doubled over, wheezing. Together, the two men wrestled her to the floor. They jammed their hands under her armpits, twisting the skin into tight rolls. Then they dragged her back inside. Frances stepped out of their way, onto the
stoep
, blinking in the bright sunshine. Two officials were standing on the road, smoking cigarettes. She asked them who the woman was.

“An English girl. She was caught ferrying five hundred pounds’ worth of diamonds in the handle of her parasol.”

“That’s not the half of it,” the other man said, dropping his cigarette and grinding it beneath the toe of his boot. “She’s been sleeping with a nigger to get them.”

“What will happen to her?”

“They’ll try and hang her, though I doubt they’ll manage it. More than likely she’ll end up on Breakwater.”

•   •   •

F
RANCES
HAD
EXPECTED
more from Kimberley’s hospital, but, like everything here, it was a single-story building made of corrugated iron. The main section of the hospital was finished, but the adjacent buildings were still under construction, and shirtless natives could be seen perched high up on timber frames like black rooks.

Anne came out of the hospital, looking efficient in her white uniform. She seemed to have grown up and filled out. Her narrow frame and pale cheeks had disappeared, and in their place was a softer, more assured figure, with the same neat, dark hair and serious eyes.

“Is this really the only hospital in Kimberley?” Frances asked when they were sitting on a bench on the hospital lawn under the flickering shade of a mesquite tree.

“This is it, the only one.” Anne smiled. “It’s not made of brick, but it’s better than the one that was here before. They used to make do with just an old army tent. Jackals would crawl in under the canvas at night and maul the patients. Once, it even blew down in a dust storm, and the men were left lying in their beds in a howling wind.”

Frances might not have believed this of any other place, but it seemed possible in Kimberley.

“You must be so proud of your husband,” Anne said after a minute.

“Proud?” Frances asked, confused.

“He’s done such a lot for Kimberley. There isn’t a nurse here who doesn’t thank him for the pressure he put on the magnates to introduce the hospital tax.”

Frances didn’t say anything. What could she say? Edwin had mentioned the hospital tax, but he hadn’t said that he had had anything to do with it. Not that it seemed to have done much good, from what she had seen last night.

Anne laughed at her silence. “You were just the same on the
Cambrian
. You never once told us what kind of man you were marrying. In fact, you were so taciturn that we all presumed you were being married off to some awful old doctor who couldn’t tie his own shoelaces.” Anne squeezed her hand. “I had no idea he was such a good man.”

Neither had I, thought Frances wryly. Anne’s empathy was misguided, but it was empathy nonetheless, and it had been a long time since she had had a conversation with someone who cared. “Anne,” she began, “it’s not always easy to be married to Edwin.” She paused, trying to work out how to phrase what she wanted to say.

“Of course it’s not,” Anne said, interrupting her. “I dare say you worry that you’re not good enough for him. Well, you mustn’t. I’m sure you’re more of a support to him than you think.”

“Perhaps.” Anne had misunderstood her completely. She was idealistic, and Frances suddenly felt the hopelessness of trying to tell her about Edwin’s obsession with smallpox and her concern that it was putting them in danger. “Well—what about you?” she asked. “What have you been up to in Kimberley?”

Anne smiled. “We work long hours. I start at seven and I’m often still in the ward past eight in the evening.”

“Do you never have an evening off?”

“Not often, but we don’t mind so much, I suppose, because we all feel so lucky to be working under Sister Clara.”

“Is she the head nurse?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember me telling you about her on the
Cambrian
?”

Frances did remember. Anne had said she was almost a saint.

“Hasn’t Dr. Matthews mentioned her?” Anne asked.

“Should he have?”

Her friend blushed, and her eyes slid away from Frances. “No, not at all. It’s only that we all admire her so much. She is one of the most influential women in South Africa. It’s because of her that we have such a fine hospital now. Your husband encouraged her to establish herself here when she was visiting Kimberley. They worked together on various projects.”

“What kind of projects?”

“The pail system, for one,” Anne said, but Frances looked at her blankly. “It’s a system for sewage disposal. Two years ago all the sewage and waste produced by the town was being dumped wherever men felt like it. Your husband wrote a report, with Sister Clara’s help, which was very influential. Now we have the beginnings of a proper sanitation system, with most of the night soil being taken away from the town regularly and buried a considerable distance away. It’s not perfect yet, but we’re getting there. Deaths from camp fever have fallen dramatically.” Anne looked embarrassed. “I suppose people don’t tell you these things, because he’s your husband. Sister Clara says there have been an awful lot of doctors in Kimberley since they discovered diamonds ten years ago, but they’ve all been in the hands of the miners. She says your husband is different. That Kimberley needs someone like him. Anyway”—Anne stopped herself, blushing slightly—“I am rattling on.”

Edwin had never told her, and she had never thought to ask, what he had done when he was here. She presumed he had started a practice, but it seemed he had been more involved in politics than doctoring. Anne looked as though she were half in love with him, and Frances laughed to herself at the thought of Edwin as a romantic hero fighting for the moral health of Kimberley.

When it was time for Anne to go, Frances asked if she could introduce her to Sister Clara. She had an idea that the woman might be able to help her. Anne was pleased. “She has such an effect on everyone she meets, and she will want to see you.”

Anne led her into the hospital, down a long corridor with white walls and a sloping roof. She knocked on a door and opened it. They entered a small room with a window, a desk, and one shelved wall crammed with books. A woman with a slender neck and neatly plaited, honey-colored hair was bent over the desk, writing. She looked up when they came in and put down her pen. Frances was surprised. She had been expecting someone older, but this was a woman of no more than thirty, profoundly beautiful, with high cheekbones and very pale blue eyes which looked Frances over with intelligent appraisal.

Anne introduced them and left the room. Sister Clara offered Frances a seat in the chair which sat opposite the desk, and she sat, feeling rather awkward, like a child called in for misbehaving. The age difference wasn’t enough to merit it, but the woman had an air of natural authority. When she spoke, it was in a low, warm voice. “Your husband has been a great source of inspiration to me, Mrs. Matthews. It is a comfort to have him back in Kimberley.”

“It may be a comfort to you, but I can assure you it isn’t for me.” Frances decided to be honest. “If there is smallpox in Kimberley, my husband is determined to prove it. He says natives are dying. I should like to know—have you seen any cases?”

“Not personally, no.”

“But you believe the disease affecting the natives may be smallpox?”

“Your husband certainly does.”

Frances nodded. “Did you know that he thinks Baier is denying it to protect himself?” The woman’s face was impassive. “I’m concerned that staying in Kimberley will be suicide for him. If he antagonizes Baier, his career will be in ruins.”

“Mrs. Matthews, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that your husband is a political animal.”

“Yes,” Frances said, though she hadn’t perhaps known this until now, “but can’t he be political without endangering himself?”

“Endangering himself or endangering you?”

Frances, who had been looking down at her hands, glanced up and met Sister Clara’s eye. “I simply wanted to ask if you might reason with him. The whole thing is madness. He is so determined, and I can’t see why he should be.”

“But I’m sure you do know why.”

Frances felt suddenly as if she might cry. No one seemed to understand her situation. They were always trying to tell her something different from what she knew.

“It is not always easy to live in the shadow of other people’s courage,” Sister Clara said.

“I don’t think I lack courage.” Frances stood up, piqued by the ease with which this woman seemed to judge her. She looked around the clean, ordered room. What she lacked was the means to live. Did Sister Clara know that Edwin was working for nothing trying to help the natives in the compounds? That they had no money to fall back on if it all went wrong? That her beloved pail system had failed to make it to the outskirts of town, where they were camped in squalor?

“Thank you, Sister Clara,” Frances said, giving the woman a curt smile and leaving the room.

•   •   •

W
HEN
F
RANCES
LEFT
the hospital, the sun was directly overhead. Edwin had asked her to buy some things for supper, and she headed towards Market Square. Her stomach felt tight and hollow, and as she walked a cold sweat prickled up her spine. Though the glare hurt her eyes, she couldn’t feel its heat and her mouth was dry and sticky. She wiped her hand over her forehead and paused for a second by the side of the road, waiting for the feeling to pass. It was then that she saw the same two men standing a little way off. They must have gone to the hospital and come back at the same time as her. The European’s eyes slid over her then looked away.

The whole of Kimberley might have been gathered in the market. It was a roar of noise; a patchwork of color and people, talking, shoving, bartering, and embracing. An auction for secondhand mining equipment was being held on the steps of the hotel. The rap of the hammer beat like a tin drum above the commotion. On the outskirts of the square, wagons full of timber, coal, and green cabbages were being unloaded. Crates of iron cooking utensils glinted in the sun. She nudged her way into the tight press of stalls, where a flow of people seethed and jostled, past Europeans, natives, Malays, and Indians. The place smelt of moldering vegetables, spices, and dried fish. Women with black, gnarled faces and strange piercings unrolled yards of fabric, their patterns fading in the sun. Malay men were squatted on the ground, dwarfed by sacks of spices full of cinnamon and cloves, smoking pipes which gave off a thick, sweet smoke.

Edwin had asked her to buy flour, meat, and sugar, but she had never set foot in a market before. In London, the cook had sent an errand boy out to buy the goods which weren’t delivered to the house. It mattered to her that Edwin thought she was at least capable of buying their supper, and she wasn’t going to go home empty-handed. Two near-naked natives pushed past, smelling of animal hides and sweat. There was a tugging at her skirt. A dark-skinned boy with no legs was dragging himself behind her on his hands. She turned to get away from him, but he was under her feet, and there was a soft crunch as she trod on his fingers. The boy screamed. Frances apologized, then pushed deeper into the market, leaving him behind.