Promise the Night (20 page)

DATE: 01:05 A.M. EST, 5 September, 1936

My engine is shuddering. Then it coughs, spitting black exhaust toward the sea. I watch my hands working furiously, as if they aren’t attached to my body. When the engine stops, the sudden silence stuns me. I can’t feel fear. I can’t feel anything.

It has to be an airlock—a bubble of air in the tubes, blocking the fuel flow. I open and close all the petcocks, cutting my fingers on the sharp metal edges. The engine catches again and roars back to life. I climb. North
America is close enough to see, but perhaps too far to fly to. The engine cuts out and I glide down toward the cliffs of Newfoundland.

On. Off. Stop. Go. Each minute brings me closer to the airport at Cape Breton. Seesawing between life and death, I’m hypnotized by the altimeter. I’m over land, gliding over green pasture. The airport must be close.

One more time, little Messenger. Just start for me one more time.

“YOUR FATHER IS A COWARD,” EMMA SAID TO BERYL AS THEY boarded the train at Nakuru.

Her stomach twisted in a bitter knot, Beryl didn’t try to defend the Captain. At the last minute, he had made a feeble excuse not to accompany her to school and had sent Emma in his place. While the other passengers chatted, played cards, and sipped from flasks, Beryl and Emma had spoken perhaps ten words during the long, bone-jarring trip. On her previous trips to Nairobi, Beryl had never thought of the train ride as uncomfortable. But then she had always been with her father, and she had had a return ticket.

When the train pulled into Nairobi, Emma fixed her dark hair, now reddish with dust. After she washed her face, she looked happier than Beryl had ever seen her. “I love the city,” she said.

They walked out of the station onto the street, followed by a porter hauling Beryl’s trunk and Emma’s suitcase. The sun had
already set, but the streets were filled with carriages and people. There were even a few of those noisy new automobiles. Beryl put her hands over her ears.

“Stop that, Beryl. You look ridiculous,” Emma snapped as the porter flagged a rickshaw for them. “The Nairobi School for European Children,” she ordered the driver.

“Yes, memsahib.” The rickshaw driver bundled them into the narrow seat. He sighed when he looked at Beryl’s heavy trunk. The porter helped him lift it and secure it to the back of the cart. Then the driver grabbed hold of the handles and, with a heave, began pulling Beryl toward her new life.

The school was at the top of a hill overlooking what had become downtown. If Beryl had not been so miserable, she might have exclaimed at how much bigger the city had grown. A few years ago, it had been burned to the ground to fight a plague. But the city had already rebuilt itself and gotten even bigger.

It was fully dark by the time Emma and Beryl arrived at the school. Even high up on a hill, and after the sun had set, the muggy heat weighed on Beryl’s skin. Stiff from the long journey, she unfolded her long legs and got out of the rickshaw. She let the driver help Emma out.

“Wait here,” Emma said the driver. “I won’t be long.”

Beryl stared at her new home. The school looked like the letter E with the middle stroke removed. It sat on stilts, and Beryl could not see what was underneath. A door opened wide at the top of the wooden stairs in the center of the building, and a slim figure appeared. She was holding a lantern, which spilled light down to Beryl and Emma.

A high-pitched nasal voice called out, “Hello, Clutterbucks! I was afraid that awful train had finally broken down in the wilder-ness. Come up, come up! You must be exhausted. Watch your step—these stairs are steep, but we find that the building stays cooler off the ground.”

It was the proprietress herself, Miss Seccombe. Beryl and Emma blinked at her, their eyes adjusting to the light of the paraffin lantern. Miss Seccombe was a slight woman with a pasty face. Her brown hair was gathered underneath a cotton kerchief. She ushered them into a tiny parlor that smelled of furniture polish.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing to an overstuffed sofa.

When she sat down, Beryl discovered that the sofa wasn’t as comfortable as it looked. Emma settled in next to her, placing her gray-gloved hand over Beryl’s scratched brown hand. Beryl pulled her hand away. Emma sighed.

Miss Seccombe smiled, revealing a healthy amount of teeth; Beryl was reminded of a hyena’s grin. She spoke only to Emma.

“My school accepts only children from the best British families. There are seven other girls her age. We teach boys as well, but they are confined to their half of the school with their own dormitory, teacher, and classroom.” She pushed toward them a tray that held glasses of lemonade. “I’m sure Beryl will be happy here, Mrs. Clutterbuck.”

Before Emma could reply, Beryl croaked, “She’s not my father’s wife—don’t call her Clutterbuck.” Then she began coughing from the dust and her long silence. She took the glass in front of her and gulped it down.

There was an embarrassed silence before Emma found her voice. “I’m not Beryl’s mother, Miss Seccombe. I help her father with the housekeeping.”

Miss Seccombe looked at Emma’s white cotton traveling dress and fashionable hat. “Oh, I see.” She looked down her pointy nose. “Well then, Miss…”

“Mrs. Orchardson,” corrected Emma.

Beryl glared at her; this was the first she had heard of Emma’s husband since Emma had arrived over a year ago.

Miss Seccombe coughed. “Mrs. Orchardson, would you like to see the school? It’s late for a tour, but I can…”

Emma said hurriedly, “No, no. I’ve delivered Beryl. I must be going to the hotel.” She hesitated and then put her arms around Beryl in an awkward embrace. Beryl kept her arms straight at her sides. Emma whispered, “Behave yourself, Beryl. Your father sends you his love.” She said a quick farewell to Miss Seccombe and was gone.

Beryl couldn’t help feeling abandoned as the echo of Emma’s steps faded in the stairway. Before the door had slammed closed, the headmistress’s smile had disappeared. Holding her lantern high, she led Beryl into a narrow hallway. Miss Seccombe pointed to the left. “That is the boys’ wing. The girls are down here.” The lantern threw strange shadows on the whitewashed walls.

“Miss Clutterbuck, there are a few rules I expect you to abide by during your time here.” Miss Seccombe pointed to a hand-lettered sign on the wall.

* You shall not blaspheme.

 

* You shall not tell falsehoods.

* You shall not disrespect the faculty.

 

* You shall not leave the premises without permission.

* You shall not resort to violence.

“Break these rules and you face severe disciplinary action, perhaps even expulsion.”

Beryl found comfort in the rules—who knew it was so easy to be expelled? She thought longingly of Arap Maina, of following him into the forest, learning to imitate animal noises, practicing her wrestling moves. Arap Maina taught by example, not with lists of stupid rules.

“Your father wrote that you have lacked a certain discipline in the past, Beryl. That won’t be tolerated here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Beryl in a low voice, flexing her hands that had once taken so much “discipline” from Miss Le May.

“Don’t mutter, dear,” admonished Miss Seccombe. “And don’t clench your fists.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Beryl muttered.

“This is the girls’ dormitory.” Miss Seccombe opened the door to a long room with beds lined up in a row against the wall. Half a dozen or so girls, clad in long white nightgowns, were preparing for bed by the light of two candles. When the door opened, they fell silent.

“This is your bed,” Miss Seccombe said, pointing to a bed at the end. “You can put your clothes in this chest.” She opened it and clucked her tongue. “Whose things are these? Each girl gets one chest. Who is using Beryl’s?”

A girl with long black hair and a turned-up nose flipped back her bedcovers and hopped out of bed. “They’re my things, Miss Seccombe.”

“Mary, how many times have I told you…?”

“But there isn’t room for all my clothes,” the girl protested.

“Remove them,” said Miss Seccombe.

Beryl said, “I haven’t brought many clothes; she can have it if she wants it.” Actually, Beryl had no idea what she had brought. Emma had supervised the packing.

“Beryl that is very generous of you—but Mary knows the rules.”

Mary gave Beryl a baleful look, opened the chest, pulled out her dresses, and took them away to her own dresser. Mary’s hair was something to see. It was divided into a dozen plaits, each twisted around a damp rag, like a crop of black snakes had sprouted on her head. Beryl remembered a story her father had told her of Medusa. She wondered whether Mary was as dangerous.

“Beryl, the other girls can show you the outhouse and explain the morning schedule.” Handing Beryl a candle, Miss Seccombe left the room, leaving her surrounded by more girls than she had ever been with in her life. Their eyes gleamed in the dim room like predators in the forest. She was outnumbered and out of her element. Deep in the privacy of her own mind she chanted, “I’m a murani, I’m a murani.”

The girl with too many clothes stepped forward. “I’m Mary Russell—who are you?”

“Beryl Clutterbuck.”

“Clutterbuck? I’ve never heard of you.”

A short girl with brown curly hair spoke up. “Clutterbuck? Captain Clutt? The racehorse trainer?”

“He’s my father,” Beryl said, cheered that someone knew about things that mattered.

“My father wants to buy one of his horses. He says the Captain raises the best.”

“Does he want a mare or a gelding?” Beryl asked eagerly. “I know every horse, and I…”

Mary interrupted. “Enough about horses. Raising horses is hardly a gentleman’s profession.”

Beryl bristled. “So what does your father do that is so gentlemanly?”

Mary tossed back her ragged snakes. “Nothing, of course. He lives off his income!”

The other girls tittered. Furious that she had given Mary a chance to make fun of her, Beryl asked, “What’s he doing in Africa, then? Waiting on his remittance check?”

The other girls gasped. Remittance men were the black sheep of good families whose relatives happily paid them an allowance to stay far away from England. After the initial shock, the girls began to laugh. The girl who had asked about horses laughed harder than the others.

“Mary, watch your step with this one.” She formally held out her hand to Beryl and introduced herself. “I’m Doris Waterman.”

Mary’s angry cheeks had two high spots of color, visible even in the candlelight. “I really had better watch my step—Beryl’s brought in manure on her shoes. Can’t you smell it?”

Beryl clenched her fists so that her nails dug into her palms. Trying to seem unconcerned, she lifted a foot to her nose and sniffed. Effortlessly, she switched feet and sniffed again. She shrugged. The other girls stared, stunned that she could pull her foot so high so effortlessly.

Mary tried again. “Are you sure you are in the right room? With those trousers and man’s shirt—maybe you should be in the boys’ dormitory?”

Beryl looked down at her khaki breeches and white linen shirt. She hadn’t bothered to change after her last ride on Camiscan.
Mary clearly meant to be rude, but Beryl couldn’t see where the insult was. She glanced around at the strange girls. “I’d rather wear comfortable clothes than a stupid dress,” she muttered.

“Oh, you’ll wear a dress. Miss Seccombe will insist. You’ll have to make lots of changes to fit in with us. But you will change,” Mary promised. “I guarantee it.”

The thought of stockings, stays, tight shoes, dresses, and hats brought home Beryl’s new situation. Tears welled up in her eyes. Dashing them away with the back of her hand, she opened her mouth to say something cutting to Mary, but no sound came out.

Mary took advantage of her silence and announced, “Lights out!” She bent over and blew out Beryl’s candle. On her signal, someone extinguished the second candle. Beryl was left alone in the dark.

Without bothering to undress, she reached into her satchel and unerringly picked out the one bundle she cared about. Her lion’s paw was wrapped in an old linen handkerchief. It had been smuggled in after Emma had approved the packing.

Beryl threw her body onto the unfamiliar bed. Having never used a pillow before, she tossed it to the floor. The straw ticking of the mattress felt itchy through the cotton sheet. She lay in the dark, stroking the furry paw over and over. She longed for her usual lullaby of hyraxes, hyenas, and cicadas, but instead the snores of seven other girls, more threatening than any roar, kept her awake.

LOCATION: A peat bog, Baleine Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada

DATE: 10:10 A.M. EST, 5 September, 1936

The Messenger won’t start. It’s dead as death. I hang above the earth on hope and a motionless propeller. The earth rushes to me. Can I lose enough speed to land safely?

The wheels touch the green ground, and for a moment, I think I’ve made it. But even the ground has betrayed me. It isn’t solid. My wheels skim along the surface for perhaps forty feet, but they find no purchase. They sink and the nose crashes forward into the mud. I strike
my head on the glass of the cockpit. I hear it shatter and feel a sharp pain on my forehead. Then nothing.