The Fever Tree (4 page)

F
rances smoothed down her mourning dress, sucked the ink stain from her finger, and read the letter again.
Dr. Matthews. There is something I should like to discuss with you.
She still wasn’t sure she wanted to send it. Could she ever feel anything except dislike for a man whose proposal had been born from pure opportunism? If he hadn’t asked to marry her, then her uncle might well have taken her in. But his letter had ruined every chance of that. He had made it too easy for her uncle to be rid of her, and it was quite possible that he had known it would be the case.

Sunlight streamed through the window. It was too hot for September, and the heavy weave of her dress was making her sweat. It was more wool than silk, and its seams chafed against her skin. She ran a finger around the cuffs, easing the material away from her wrists. What would he make of her change of mind?

The writing desk, worn and polished, was almost entirely covered with letters of condolence. It faced the window and she looked out onto the garden. The grass, usually carefully trimmed, had overgrown its borders. It would need cutting, but not by Kerrick. Another heap of envelopes had arrived this morning. Not the letters she might have expected, from the politicians and businessmen who had fêted her father when he was successful and deserted him when his money ran out. These were people she had never heard of, governors and trustees of charities and ordinary men and women who wanted to acknowledge her father’s benefaction. She hadn’t known about his work for charity, and it was a consolation that there were people who loved him for it, who hadn’t abandoned him as soon as his fortunes had turned. She might have had a chance to meet some of these men if convention had allowed her to be at the funeral, but instead she had been forced to spend the day at home with Mrs. Arrow.

Frances dropped the letter onto the desk and rested her head in her hands. All morning she had listened to the milling of feet through the corridors of the house. Gradually, the noise had subsided, and now all she could hear was the occasional ripple of applause when something went under the hammer for a good price. Most of the furniture would be gone by tomorrow—only the morning room and her bedroom had been spared—and her aunt had already left for Manchester. It was a blessing to have her out of the house. She couldn’t have borne her running commentary on the event.

There was a knock on the door.

“Tea, Miss?”

“Yes, Kerrick. Thank you. How many is that now?”

Kerrick’s forehead crumpled into an expression of deep disgust. “Over one hundred since this morning.” He stood not quite straight in the doorway, his shoulders bunched together with age.

“And the sale?”

“It seems good, Miss. Your father had no shortage of beautiful things. But there’s an awful lot of gentlemen happy just to gawk.”

The contents of the house, and the house itself, wouldn’t bring in enough to cover her father’s losses. There would be nothing left over for her. “Heavily and unwisely invested” was the verdict delivered by her uncle when he had emerged from a protracted meeting with her father’s lawyer. When she asked to know more, he polished his nose with his thumb and forefinger and delicately avoided the word “bankruptcy.”

The newspapers told her more. Her father, it turned out, had been borrowing money against his company to invest in the Northern Pacific Railway, which was building a line across a vast, untracked stretch of land up near Canada. Six weeks ago, the railway company had filed for bankruptcy, defeated by the remoteness and scale of the terrain. There was a map in the paper. They had meant to extend the line almost across the breadth of America, from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. Frances understood why the idea of a railway across the wilderness might have appealed to her father. When she was a child, he had loved to show her his collection of maps. He would unfurl them on his desk and point out uncharted territories in Canada or Africa. His face would become animated as he described their remoteness, and she had the sense, as she listened to him, that he felt trapped in London, hemmed in by the conventions of Society.

Now his debts had to be paid, the lawyer’s fees and the staff wages. Her uncle had stepped in to help, and she was grateful but also unnerved by his efficiency. The funeral, his arrangements for the staff, and the sale of the house had all been accomplished in a little over a month. Kerrick had been with them for fourteen years, and in just a few days he would be gone. There was almost nothing left of her father’s life. Irvine & Hitchcock, his furniture business, one of the largest in England, had been sold off for less than the value of its stock. And now the auction, as if in opening up the house to Society he could satisfy its appetite for scandal. Even Frances was to be tidied away, and once she was gone her mother’s family could get on with the business of forgetting.

If she sent the letter then she would have to accept Edwin’s offer. She was intrigued by Africa. It could offer her a fresh start. And she could get used to a less affluent life, going without the things she was used to. The problem was that she didn’t think she would ever come to like him. He was too serious. Always analyzing everything until he had squeezed all the joy out of it. When she was with him she felt he expected something from her, a kind of moral rectitude to match his own. And she couldn’t imagine letting him touch her. Worse than that, she distrusted him. He had appealed to her uncle, unashamedly using her father’s death to strengthen his claim, even when she had made it quite clear the last time they had spoken that she wouldn’t consider his proposal. It was ambition. He wanted her not because he cared about her, but because she would be a mark of his success.

She remembered him as a boy, dazzled by this house with its broad garden and white Kensington façade, by their hushed rooms and walls lined with books. Unable to have these things for himself, his ambition had crystallized into marrying the girl who had grown up with them. He really didn’t know her at all, and it was these parallel motives of worship and control which unnerved her. It was possible he equated these feelings to love, but to her it looked like little more than grasping self-interest.

Yet it had to be better than living with her aunt in Manchester. At least she would have her independence. She read the letter again and in a moment of quick decisiveness folded it and slipped it into an envelope, held it for a second more between her fingers, then dropped it onto the silver letter tray. Kerrick came in with the tea, set it out on the low table, picked up the letter, and was gone.

Frances turned back to the window. She blinked into the hot glare of light and caught sight of two figures standing on the lawn; ladies from the auction looking for something to report back to their friends. They peered through the windows, and when they saw her watching, one of them waved at her guiltily. Frances leant forward quickly and closed the shutters, boxing herself up in the dark.

•   •   •

I
T
HADN
’
T
OCCURRED
to her that he might not come. She waited all day in the morning room. The house was hot and silent. Groups of men arrived from time to time to remove furniture, and the quiet was broken by their thick, labored grunts and the scrape of wood on marble. When she was sure that he wouldn’t come, she went up to her bedroom to begin packing. But she felt defeated by disappointment. Piles of dresses, open drawers, hatboxes, and a muddle of shoes had turned her room into disarray. Two small suitcases gaped open by her bed. How could she possibly decide what to take with her? Her aunt had been very deliberate in her instructions. There wasn’t room in her house for a Society girl. She must keep her belongings to a minimum.

At five o’clock Lotta knocked at her door.

“Dr. Matthews to see you, Miss. He is waiting in the morning room.”

Frances found him standing with his back to her, cap in one hand, looking into the garden. She stood for a second watching him. He was perfectly still; a slight figure in a suit worn thin at the edges and cut too short for the fashion. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

“Dr. Matthews. You are very kind to have come.”

He turned at the window. “Miss Irvine. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She nodded and motioned to one of the low chintz chairs pulled up on either side of the cold grate. They sat opposite each other, and he drew his hands into his lap and looked at her intently. His silence felt like scrutiny. She had forgotten his ability to disarm her. Gone was the shy, unsure boy of sixteen. He was no longer her guest, reliant on her father for charity. She needed something from him, and she suspected he knew what it was. The window had been pushed open, letting in a thin stream of cooler air and the gentle grind of traffic from the street.

“You must be enjoying seeing your family after so long away?”

“Yes, but I sail tomorrow from Southampton. That is, if the weather holds.”

She was surprised. “Back to South Africa? So soon?”

“My plans have changed.” He gave her a tight, compact smile. “And yourself? What will you do now?”

“My aunt has offered to have me. I am to take the train up to Manchester next week.” She talked to fill the silence. “Truthfully, I am a little scared. She has three children under the age of eight, and I am to be a nurse to all of them. That is until I can find myself a position or a husband.” She blushed, realizing her mistake. “My uncle manufactures soap. So at the very least I shall be clean.”

He smiled, as if waiting for something. She felt a flush rising up her neck. Then he looked away, stood up, ran his hands through his hair, and walked over to the window. His movements were quick and agile, and she realized his stillness was deceptive. After a few moments he came back and stood by her chair, looking down at her.

“Shall we have an honest conversation?” He paused, waiting for her approval before going on. “The Cape is a very different place to England. When I saw you last I had just arrived in London. My excitement to be home clouded my judgment. I had forgotten how Society works here, how rigid it can be. I had no reason to expect a different answer to the one you gave me.”

He crouched down beside her, picked up her hand, and held it lightly in his. His skin was pale, almost translucent. Beads of sweat had broken out on his upper lip. “And yet, I was sick with disappointment. I would like to have you, Frances, as my wife.” He paused. “If circumstances have changed your mind, they have not changed mine. The decision is still yours to make.”

Frances was silent for a moment, conscious that everything depended on what she said next. In a whisper, embarrassed by the sudden intimacy her answer would throw up between them, she said, “I would like to go with you to South Africa.”

He pulled her gently towards him, whispering her name. When he kissed her, his lips were unexpectedly cold, and she drew her head sharply away from him, but he stayed crouched awkwardly in front of her, leaning his head into her shoulder and kissing her neck wetly. She hadn’t expected this. He groaned softly and she shivered, gazing over his shoulder towards the window. The sun had passed behind the trees, and she saw a fly, dizzy with heat, turning itself in circles against the pane. I have done the right thing, she told herself, as she felt his fingers press into the waist of her dress. I will forget England, and I will try to be happy.

F
rances closed the front door and stood for a few seconds in the hallway of the house. It was early October, a month after she had accepted Edwin’s proposal. Outside she could hear the driver’s grunts as he loaded her trunk onto the cab. The servants had all left for their new positions, and the rooms had settled into a quiet, dusty emptiness, their walls a pattern of dark squares from the pictures which had been taken down and sold. Lotta, who left this morning, had been the last to go, and for the first time since she could remember, Frances was utterly alone. She stood rooted to the spot, unable—now that the moment had come—to bring herself to leave. As long as she was here she could hold on to her father, but when she stepped through the front door she would be leaving behind everything she had ever known.

The last month had been spent on her own in the house. The cook had left not long after the funeral, and her meals had been taken at the desk in the morning room, prepared by Lotta. Frances had hoped Lucille would visit, but her cousin never came. She wanted to tell someone about the dread which was bearing down on her. She was frightened of leaving England, and needed reassurance that she wouldn’t be forgotten. She called on the Hamiltons, but the maid told her they had gone to Bath for the month. Frances had taken to waking up in the dead of night, her heart pounding. It was always the same dream. She was floating on the surface of a black sea, and when she screamed no one could hear her.

After a few minutes, she walked down the hall, her boots clacking on the stone floor. She pushed open the door to her father’s study. The hinges creaked, and the familiar sound conjured an image of him sitting at his desk, but when she stepped into the room it was empty. The curtains had been stripped from the windows, and the rug had been pulled off the floor, exposing raw, unpolished boards. The room smelt of him. Of cigar smoke and something else that lingered.

The only piece of furniture left over from the auction was his chair, which stood alone in the center of the room, almost as if his ghost sat upon it. The green leather on the seat had wrinkled, and there was a dip from the many years of bearing his weight. She placed a hand on the hollow, half expecting it to be warm, but it was cool and slightly tacky against her palm. She sank into the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest. When she thought she might cry, she clenched her jaw and pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes until the blackness was punctured by shards of light. Perhaps if she stayed exactly where she was, the world would come to a halt and she would never have to leave. But a moment later she heard a hammering on the door. It was the cabdriver, impatient to be off, and she uncurled herself and—for the last time—walked down the hall and out of the house.

•   •   •

P
ADDINGTON
S
TATION
was a heaving roar of noise and smoke. Crowds surged in all directions. Frances, unused to such a rush of people, was momentarily overwhelmed. She had only a few minutes to get herself and her luggage on the train, but she couldn’t find a porter. Cursing the cab which had flung her down on the side of the street, she lugged her trunk toward the station concourse. Men pressed against her on all sides. A boy selling the
Penny Paper
walked up and down the line shouting the day’s news. Usually she would have had Kerrick or her father here to help, but
usual
didn’t count. She would have to make do by herself.

“Watch where you’re at!” Two young porters in caps ran past, wheeling trolleys piled high with cases.

“You’ll get run over if you stand there!” one of them shouted, knocking her sprawling onto the wet station floor. She stood up, brushed the mud off her skirts, and pushed her way along the edges of the throng until the crush eased. There was a pie shop, closed for business, and she stood for a moment resting in the doorway. There was no porter here, just two businessmen in black frock coats who walked past her without a second glance. Something tugged at her sleeve and she swung round, bumping into a thick-waisted man who wore an old coachman’s blue greatcoat, buttonless and blackened by damp. His hair was matted with grease, and his breath smelt of drink. “Sewin’ cotton, Miss?”

She shook her head with an attempt at authority, but he bent closer, thrusting forward a rack of dirty cotton reels. His hand was swollen with cold; black grime etched between bulges of tight red skin. He edged forward as she backed away. “Cotton, Miss?” He took a step nearer. “On’y one for a penny.”

Frances turned, but he was too agile. “Cat got your tongue? Too fancy to talk?”

He waddled towards her with exaggerated steps, laughing and gyrating his hips until she was backed up into the small doorway with her shoulders pressing into the knocker and the man’s coat, stiff with age, brushing the front of her dress. He snatched at her wrist and held it, and when he smiled his mouth was full of broken, yellowing teeth.

“I need a bit of cash,” he said, leering at her. She shoved him away with her free hand, but the strike had no impact on the solidity of his body. He grasped her wrist and twisted it with the other into the grip of one hand. Then he felt around her waist for a hidden purse. Frances screamed, and a moment later his body was being dragged away from her by a tall, well-built man in a tweed jacket with wild black hair and a thick beard. The cotton seller stumbled away.

“Are you all right?” the man asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking at her closely. He had dark eyes, like pools of ink. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. Thank you.” Her voice shook slightly. “Could you help me? I’m meant to be catching the one o’clock to Southampton, but I’m afraid it leaves any minute. I need a porter.”

“That’s my train,” he said, swinging her trunk effortlessly onto one shoulder. “Platform three. We’d better hurry or we’ll miss it.” He shouldered his way through the crowds and across the concourse, and she followed in his wake. Their train, still motionless, belched clouds of steam, while men in uniform walked down the platform shutting up the doors.

“Lucky I happened to be there,” he said, handing her up. There was a piercing whistle, and the train shuddered into life.

“Thank you,” she said, turning in the doorway, but he was already gone, darting up the platform to the first-class carriages.

•   •   •

T
HE
TRAIN
CAREERED
through the outskirts of the city too fast to make anything meaningful of her last glimpses of London, but there was no use wishing it to slow down. Her life in England was over. In her portmanteau was a ticket stamped “Female Middle Class Emigration Society.” Edwin had paid for her passage to Cape Town under the protection of the charity, and in a compartment at the end of the carriage she found the group of girls traveling to South Africa. She stepped inside, and an absentminded-looking, middle-aged woman with round eyes and florid cheeks looked up reluctantly from her Bible.

“Miss Irvine?”

Frances nodded.

“Good. I was worried we had lost someone already.” She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief. “I’m Sister Mary-Joseph, your matron for the journey.”

The girls shifted along the bench to make room, and Frances sat down between the window and a girl with blond curls, who gave her a broad, white-toothed smile and offered her a mint.

“Thanks,” Frances said, dipping her hand into the paper bag.

“I’m Mariella.”

“Frances.”

The girl leant in and breathed a wave of peppermint into her ear. “She’s not reading the Bible, you know. There’s another book hidden inside the cover.”

“What is it?” Frances whispered.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

Sister Mary-Joseph was employed by the charity to safeguard the moral health of her eight charges, ensuring they didn’t fall in love with the first seaman who smiled at them. Frances knew that these girls, like her, must be apprehensive about the kind of lives they would find in South Africa, but she couldn’t help envying them. They had signed up to teach or to nurse. Their lives were to some extent their own, and they would more than likely marry someone of their own choosing. She traced a gloved finger through the condensation on the window, revealing a flickering strip of green. There was no changing the future towards which she was rapidly hurtling.

Only yesterday she had given up her mourning clothes, folding them into a box which would be sent, with the last of her possessions, to Lucille and Victoria. Edwin had written telling her to bring only the simplest things. He had hinted at limited means, saying that their day-to-day lives would be basic. Colonial girls, he wrote, were different to their counterparts in England. It wasn’t beneath even the best of them to cook, sew, and do the washing. She wouldn’t have any need for fine dresses and white gloves. Instead, he told her, use the space in your luggage for things of use which couldn’t be found easily in South Africa. At least two pairs of strong boots for walking, gloves for gardening, a good sewing kit, some muslin which could be sewn into nets to keep off flies, and fabric—at least ten yards—to make curtains. Her trousseau should be as practical as possible. Don’t be tempted to bring silverware and expensive linen; instead pack cooking utensils and one or two good iron pots. If you possibly can, he wrote, bring a sewing machine. It will be an enormous comfort to you. Frances struggled to imagine any scenario in which a sewing machine would be a comfort to her. She hadn’t the first idea how to use one.

Edwin’s list was so outlandish that when she tried to picture her life in South Africa, she kept coming back to an image of herself sitting at a sewing machine wearing canvas gloves and heavy-duty leather boots. It might have made her laugh if he hadn’t been so clearly serious. He obviously didn’t have any idea of her capabilities. He had insisted on having her because she was Sir John Hamilton’s niece, and now he wanted her to become some kind of missionary’s wife. Still, she had done her best, conceding to the boots and gloves and using up precious space in her trunk for two iron pots. Almost everything fashionable had been left behind. Alongside her two cotton dresses, her black woolen bodice and skirt, and her stockings and undergarments, she had brought only one pair of white kid gloves, a bundle of lace, and a silk evening dress—there was bound to be an occasion at Kimberley when she would want it. She had packed a white muslin gown for the wedding and a pair of straw hats to keep off the sun. She wasn’t sure what she would be able to find in South Africa, so she had brought a few pots of oil of cacao, two bottles of tuberose perfume, enough powder to last six months, and some bath soaps. There was a book on household management—a gift from her aunt, Lady Hamilton—and finally, stowed at the bottom of the trunk, her easel and her watercolors.

The two girls sitting on the bench opposite had struck up a quick friendship. They were debating which was worse, a Boer or a Bushman. Their voices clattered over the fragile silence kept by the rest of the compartment. Occasionally, a tunnel shuttered them in momentary darkness and they were quiet, only to start up again when the train burst out into the light.

Cornfields gave way to rolling green downs, the sky became overcast, and rain began to fall in spats against the window. A cemetery was backed too close to the railway track, gravestones gaping out like broken teeth. The train cut through a chalk escarpment down into an open, verdant valley floor, past a forest of hawthorns and an ugly flat-roofed brick building which loomed out of a clearing in the trees: Southampton’s poorhouse. All of a sudden the landscape opened up and they were skimming along the edge of Southampton Water to the mouth of the Itchen. A beach of clean white shingle curved away from the track, and they were there.

Porters darted onto the train, offloading their trunks onto trolleys marked “The Cape Run.” Frances stepped down behind a scrawny boy who was clutching a birdcage half his size. His mother snatched up his hand and scolded him for dragging his feet. The girls walked down the platform, past the first-class carriages, where servants in livery were handing down luggage. There was no sign of the man who had helped her, and she wondered whether he had been too late to board the train.

The station led right onto a promenade, an open expanse of sea and sky framed by green hills rising up on either side of The Solent. The wind snatched at their umbrellas and made sails of their skirts. The air was damp with rain and held the sharp, metallic taste of salt and, beneath it, the cloying stench of rotting fish. Mail wagons belonging to steam-packet companies with names like “Oriental” and “The West India” surged up from the docks. Coaches and luggage wagons competed for space, offloading cargo and passengers, who scrambled out onto the wet cobbles shouting for their footmen to follow. A man with a wheedling voice called “Iced ginger beer” to a cold, uninterested crowd. Sister Mary-Joseph ushered the girls over to a sailor who was shouting above the commotion, “The
Cambrian
this way! Passengers for the Cape run!”

They joined a group of bedraggled figures waiting to be handed down into a small steam tug. A stretch of canvas had been drawn across it for shelter. The sea looked dark and ugly under the blanket of fine rain. It moved with a lurching swell, swilling corrugated boxes and submerged newspapers up against the side of the pier. When it was Frances’s turn, she stepped forwards and gave her hand to the ship’s boy, put a foot carefully onto the slick wood, and stepped down into the belly of the boat. Black smoke pumped up into the dark, wet sky. A steam packet maneuvered its way out from behind them, and the tug heaved in its wake, grinding itself against the algaed bricks of the pier. As they headed out into The Solent, the sky brightened. Seagulls wheeled and mewed above them, flashes of gray in a high white sky. One of the girls pointed out the Isle of Wight, and they all strained to look at the faint shadow of hills etched against the horizon.

The tug chugged over to the docks and into the shadow of the
Cambrian
. The steamship towered over them, motionless on the surface of the sea, like a huge factory with its steel plates and black funnels. Two squat collier ships were pulled up next to it, and their crews heaved sacks of coal onto pulleys. Frances lifted her shawl over her shoulders to prevent the fine black coal dust from settling on her dress. It was cold, and a forlorn gloom had fallen over the girls. Excitement had given way to apprehension. The seawater swilling around in the bottom of the boat seeped into their boots, and when Frances scrunched her toes, water oozed out from between the leather seams. The colliers finally finished, but they had to give way to a smart little steamship which had pulled alongside carrying first-class passengers. More waiting under a drizzling rain. The women from the Female Middle Class Emigration Society were low priority in the scheme of things.