Devoured (10 page)
Flora blushed. She had read it under cover at night, but she knew the penalty for a girl like her reading such seditious material openly. The Church had condemned it, vicars crying from their pulpits that it was the devil’s work. Saying it was the work of an atheist, a radical, someone who wanted to destroy everything, the natural order of things. Nevertheless, its ideas about how the world was made had bewitched her. But Flora said nothing of this to Dr Canning.
He smiled. ‘Well,
Vestiges
was nothing, my dear, to the outcry these letters will cause. They will upset the whole apple cart and cause a right old commotion in The House, but it’s just what I would expect from your mistress. I don’t speak ill of her, not at all. I admire her. She’s a fine woman and, it goes without saying, pays for all of this,’ and he’d waved his arms around his pokey little room, as if it was a palace.
A bigger debate, he’d said. Madam loved debates, and that whole day went by in a whirl of ink, jugs of porter, blotting paper, corrections, and comments. Verification, he called it. And added with a smile, ‘Before I arrange to take these to the
Westminster Review,
would you like me to read you the letters, Flora? So that you know what they contain? You see, my dear, ideas are a dangerous thing.’ Flora had nodded, terrified, not able to resist. She’d shut her eyes, and felt a breeze rustling through a far-flung forest.
June 21st, 1855
My dearest Lady Bessingham,
I am writing these words upriver, far into the dense jungles of Simunjan. I was hoping that I might have received a word from you on life in England, but alas the mail boat arrived with nothing for me, save a few notes from my father who is such a sparse and unemotive writer. Father, as ever, discussed the current state of play in Westminster. I must confess, being here a million miles away, I find it all, dare I say, irrelevant. I suppose I should pretend to be a little more attuned to the Great Acts of Parliament, but it seems to me that there is more to learn here about the governance of life than is ever found in politics.
For as I lie here, a thousand tiny creatures go about their infinite work. Ants march in line and the sky seems lost to me. I
crane my eyes up above the looming canopy. It glints, a gesture of the world outside the forest. But it’s never peaceful here. It’s deafening. Everywhere I look and listen, I am spellbound, intoxicated, drowned in and drowned out, by the onslaught of Nature.
We left Sarawak on June 9th, giving us just a few months before the rains are due. Alongside my Dutch companions, my friend Emmerich decided to join us, tempted by the call of rare and undiscovered pitcher plants. Emmerich not only speaks excellent Malay but also, most impressively, some Dayak dialect.
He is an amusing fellow, both entertaining and highly informative. There’s not a fern, a palm, a root, or a bud that defeats him. He has been in East Asia for five years wandering the islands as far as Aru, collecting only plants. Quite rotund and short, he has a kind face and a gentle, studious manner, as you might perhaps expect a man obsessed with botany. The day I first met him, I was haggling over the price of butterfly nets when he sprang to my aid and secured a price of three shillings for half a dozen. We quickly fell into an animated discussion about where we had come from and where we hoped to go, and after a breakfast of mangosteen and coffee, Emmerich soon had me under his wing.
Our party numbers five collectors (including myself, the novice) and our native helpers. The boats had been hewn from the enormous tapang trees
(Koompassia excelsa),
and as we moved along the river, within a day from Sarawak,
we were soon in virgin forest. The banks began to slide away and enclosed us in a silent, trickling, half-light place. Nature folded in around us, monkeys hollered, holding sway with fallen trees, branches, roots, and creepers delaying our onward journey. But the helmsmen pushed on through the floating grass and giant lilies till the gullies of tawny water ran like veins.Our general servant, Uman, is efficient and helpful. He is a bullseye shot and, like my German friend, speaks the hill tribes’ dialects. His English is faultless and despite his lack of any formal education, he burns with an impressive intellect. I know he is our servant, but there is something in his manner which absolutely confirms him as more than my equal. Uman is aided by a young companion, who I believe is some sort of cousin to his family. This rascally slip of a boy is called San and he cannot be more than nine. His voice flitters round the boat like music. He hops from task to task, and if we do not keep a regular watch on him, is often slurping back the arak that I keep for my specimens, but when we catch him it’s hard to be angry for long. He looks at me, as if to dare a beating, then dives off the boat down to the bottom of the river, his lithe body twisting coppery like weeds. And when he rises up again (we are all with bated breath, for he has been down for far too long), he spits out the water like a little whale and I think to myself, how very like the animals we are!
This is a tight little community, confined as we are to camping on odd patches of earth between the mangroves, but
despite our containment, we are getting along. For example, Mr Banta is a fine fellow. His laugh is infectious and just the slightest quip can set him off. We all laugh with him when this happens, except Ackerman, who seems to find Mr Banta less amusing. He only looks at us with a faint, but just detectable, mocking in his face.But Mr Banta is a brilliant ornithologist and has won quite a reputation for his cataloguing of hornbills. He and Uman draw great flocks in towards our dugouts with near perfect mimicry. Uman has a little whistle made of reed which he puts to his lips, and when he blows it, the air fills with a flurry of gregarious birds.
I like to think myself a taxidermist, but the speed at which Uman strips these brilliant feathers is extraordinary. His fingers fly across the bird until the skin is bare. The bones are boiled, dried out, tagged, and boxed. The flesh is cut up into little chunks and skewered in an oily marinade. One thing is for sure. Nothing is wasted here and everything feels connected.
So on the whole I am very happy in the company of these men, but there’s one, I must confess, who irks me. He is Mr Ackerman, the chess player. I cannot say exactly why, Lady Bessingham, and I am sure you would urge me patience, but something in his nature unsettles me.
Perhaps I am judging him too harshly, for he’s done nothing to warrant this dislike, but if I was to put him in a category it would be insectile. His classification would be
Brunneria borealis.
He is like a praying mantis. Bent over, hands clasped together, blank of eye as if waiting for something to happen, for one of us to make a false move, whereupon he can swoop upon us like the predator. He suffers from a heat rash and so his skin is scaly, but he’s stoical and never scratches like the rest of us. He rarely smiles except when playing chess (which is not a time when most men smile), but it is clear to me why Mr Ackerman smiles. He is beating us.Ackerman gives little of himself. He seems to be distracted and rarely joins in with our conversations about Nature. His passion is his gun, his Machars whisky, and, it seems to me, his damn ledger, which he forever has his nose in, making copious notes, but he gives nothing away as to its content. I do not know who he really is, or where he’s from. He’s clearly well connected in the world of trade and I understand he even works in England when the promise of money takes him there.
Emmerich thinks he is from Vlissingen on the coast of Holland, and like the boatmen, knows the water. If he does, he doesn’t show it and seems intent on nothing but his gun. Even in the dugouts, he’s forever oiling it or taking it apart, examining every hinge and bolt. In silence. He is readying it for hunting.
Madam, forgive me. I am rambling, but is it any wonder that in this forest, one becomes jumbled and confused? Of course, I am fine here and have already collected over twenty specimens of butterflies, including the common birdwing
(Troides helena)
and common tree nymph
(Idea stolli),
and identified more than five types of orchid, guided by the knowledge of Emmerich. Tomorrow we are heading for Empugan, a small village, where we will stay for a while and are promised many pitcher plants (for Emmerich) and for the rest of us, orang – meaning man – utan.I will put this letter to rest now with the others. Who knows when I shall next see a mail boat.
Your servant etc.
Dr Canning took off his reading glasses and lay the letters down, but left Flora wanting more. More of Borneo, of its secrets, and for Dr Canning to look at her again for just a second longer, but then came the message from Violet.
Violet didn’t come herself but had sent the footman. Her
so-called
beau, as Violet foolishly liked to call him. The knock when it came was a harsh interruption. Flora went quickly to the door, telling Dr Canning she’d only be a minute, and stepped out into the hummingbird corridor, where the footman grabbed her by the arm and hissed in her ear, ‘Where the hell have you been? Lady Bessingham died last night. Her head crushed in by that bloody great fossil. You know the one, Flora …’ And then he said that everyone was looking for her, and that she’d better ‘hop it’ or she would ‘cop it’, unless of course, he added with a lascivious wink, ‘You’d like to do a little favour for me, nice little chit like you …’ These last words delivered as he scrunched a note into her face, whilst clinching her waist and trying to kiss her. A sharp stamp with her boot was all it took to make him let her go and Dr Canning must have heard the blood curdling yelp, because he was quick to the door with, ‘What the devil’s going on out here?’ but the footman had already gone.
Back in the room, they examined the note.
‘The writing is poor,’ she said. ‘There is an attempt here at an
h
and another at
d
and
e
. She must be telling me to hide.’
Canning tried to persuade her otherwise. ‘But how did she know you were here? I thought your mistress told you to tell no one you were coming to the museum.’
Flora was as pale, visibly shaking as she admitted, ‘I mentioned my errand for Lady Bessingham to another maid called Violet, but she’s a meek little thing and would never say anything to anyone. She must think we’re in some kind of danger or she wouldn’t have sent a warning.’
‘Well, this is a matter for the police, Miss James. They’ll want to talk to us and your friend might be right. We could be in danger. These letters? Who else knows of their existence? Are you absolutely sure you’ve spoken to no one else? Miss James? Are you listening to me? Miss James?’
Dr Canning caught her as she fell. He rushed to get brandy and held a glass to her lips but she pushed it away.
‘We need to leave here, sir,’ she begged.
‘This is against my better judgement,’ he muttered to himself but ten minutes later they were walking quickly through the snowy streets of London, Dr Canning knowing she was right and that they needed to go somewhere private, somewhere he could think a little more clearly.
Home, he thought. Home is where they needed to be.
And home was Gordon Square, just a quick hop from Great Russell Street. His rooms were in a house on the corner, opposite a monstrous church, and as they reached his door, the bells rang out, a great peel of chimes calling the faithful to prayer.
The sky was tin metal with great puffing clouds, and Flora was glad to be inside the narrow stairwell because she couldn’t help thinking they were being followed. But there was nothing, of course. And no one.
Dr Canning had busied himself arranging the furnishings to ensure she had some privacy; this simple act of kindness to her, a maid and nothing more, not unnoticed, and Flora stayed in this little room of his for what felt like for ever.
She sighed remembering all that had passed. It seemed like an age but was only two days ago. She swayed as she stood, the funeral card still in her hand.
But then a tread on the stairs. A little tread and a creaking sound. Was it near, or far away? Her heart stood still. Her blood ran cold. There was nowhere to hide. She’d been right. Someone had followed them. How foolish. How ridiculously foolish to think they could pass unnoticed, for there is always someone prepared to sell a stranger’s life for practically nothing.
The card dropped to the floor. She listened. Steps quite heavy coming up the stairs, nearer and nearer. She was panicking, but where could she go?
When the bang on the door to the room came, it was loud. Like a hammer. Did they hammer her mistress’s head in? Is that what the footman said?
Quick, think, for heaven’s sake, Flora, she begged herself, then, wild-eyed, looked at the window, pressing her face against it, knowing she could fit through, yes, but fall to her death? There were up five flights. It was certain. So instead, she simply waited. Until she heard the person move away again with a clack, clack, clack down the stairs.
