Everfair (12 page)

A gasp from the crowd of spectators interrupted Lily's speech. The basket surged suddenly upward, rocking waist-high in the air. Tink pulled something out of the engine's exposed side—a dark oblong shape—a damping device of some sort? Sputtering noises like the sneezing of a sick cat filled the momentary silence. Daisy thought it rather humorous. Then they blent together into a burbling, whistling whir and the whole contraption cleared their heads and went swooping triumphantly toward the caves' entrance.

It didn't make it. With a shout, Winthrop abandoned his cask and grabbed a rope still tied to the basket. Tink and Chester joined him, taking up other lines and coordinating their efforts, so that finally the balloon toured the cave's circumference in graceful—almost stately—revolutions.

 

London, England, December 1896

The man's gall infuriated him. With a curse, Jackie Owen snapped shut the hackney's door and bid the cabman go. Leopold—Jackie refused to call the tyrant a king—insisted that his bullies in the Congo acted against his orders, that he could not control them. A patent lie! Obviously they obeyed he who paid their wages.

Why wasn't all the world equally enraged by the greedy Belgian's blatantly noxious enterprises? He and Laurie and the other Fabians must make them so.

Nestled in his coat's breast pocket, Daisy's last letter to him detailed the fall of Bookerville. All the casualties seemed to have been blacks—which was to be expected, given their greater numbers. She, thank fortune, had been elsewhere during the attack. Since the first of their sexual liaisons following Laurie's desertion, Jackie had found himself harboring an oddly protective attitude toward her. Distance weakened this atavistic tendency, but not by much.

From a thousand leagues off he continued to worry. Though his dear—no, his colleague, dammit! Though Daisy had escaped injury in October, there might well have been subsequent attacks since. He couldn't know. That, too, infuriated him.

A feeling of helplessness, utter helplessness, threatened to overcome him. He lowered the cab's window to let in light and air, to let the cold, brisk wind clear away the stench of his despair. If only he could somehow select the colony's martyrs—those who'd raise the right sentiments in the right breasts. Excepting Daisy. But this broad attack on everyone did little to help the cause. Particularly as many of the whites he'd brought with him had deserted it.

The Society could put an end to Everfair's harassment, even if only temporarily. Leopold had let this be known—indirectly, as was his cowardly, snakelike way. All it would take was money.

Jackie stuck his hand inside his coat and fingered the soft folds of Daisy's letter again. Then he found and pulled out the pasteboard square he had tucked behind it. “Matthew Jamison, Esq.” Below the name was printed an address. It would not be far out of his road to make a call there. He thumped the cab's roof for the driver's attention and instructed him where to go. Time enough for the bank afterward; it would still be open another hour or two, and, anyway, the draft Jackie had obtained from his publisher was not nearly enough.

They slowed in front of a park green with holly and yews. Children trampled the muddy paths, shouting at one another and waving sticks. The driver pulled up to the stylish townhouse just past it, a dark red door at the top of its immaculate steps. He agreed to wait while Jackie transacted his business.

There was barely time to register the fresh scent of the Christmas wreath hung on the door before it was opened. Not, Jackie saw almost at once, by the establishment's butler, who hovered behind the gentleman welcoming him in. “I'm Matthew Jamison. Matty to my friends. You're not who I was expecting, but I recognize you from Thomson's description—John Owen? The author?”

“Yes, I'm he.” Jamison was slight and golden haired—Jackie might have taken him for a boy if not for his moustache and rather too-dapper attire. “You've heard of me from—whom? Thomson? I'm afraid I don't know who you're referring to.”

“Joseph Thomson? The explorer? He attended a talk you gave on Everfair.”

“Ah. Yes.” Jackie remembered him now. A Scot. He had pledged 150 sterling.

“But let us retire to my sitting room instead of standing about here in the entrance hall!” Jamison led him through a low arch and a doorway framed in dark wood. The room faced the park. Large windows with drapes pushed to their sides gave a good view of it. A desk scattered with papers occupied the center of a sturdy-looking carpet.

A fire burned on the hearth opposite the windows. Jamison offered Jackie one of the two chairs drawn up before it and took the other.

“Sherry? I suppose it's too early for that. Tea? I can easily ring for something to be sent up.”

“You said you were expecting another caller?” Jackie asked.

“Oh. Not exactly, but a professor at Oxford, come to town for the holidays, had promised to perhaps—that is, if he were to find the time to talk with me about his researches on the rights of the unenfranchised in ancient societies, this would be the afternoon he visited.”

“You are interested in such things?” The woman who'd provided Jackie with Jamison's card hadn't mentioned that. Perhaps the man's reputation as a lightweight playwright was undeserved. Perhaps Jackie's mission was more likely than he estimated to meet with success.

“Of course! As an author it seems to me I must know all I can of the myriad ways mankind has chosen to regulate itself. Surely you think the same?”

He allowed himself the luxury of a small smile. “Indeed, and I do my best to ensure that my knowledge is more than academic. Not to disparage your professor—”

“No! But I'm intrigued; how do you mean, ‘ensure'? And shall I ring? Biscuits? Fruit?”

“Nothing for me; if anyone else comes, I'll share in whatever they have.”

For thirty minutes or so, judging by the shadows under the park's trees, Jackie regaled Jamison with stories of life among the Fabians, and more to the point, in Everfair. He ended when his host rose from his desk—where he had taken a seat midway through Jackie's monologue—and placed a cheque for fifty thousand pounds sterling in Jackie's hand. That got his attention.

But the cheque hadn't been signed.

“You haven't asked me for anything,” Jamison said, smoothly resuming his chair by the fire. “But I've saved you the trouble of doing so, I believe, for I don't see why a man of your stature would have come to a man of my stature, if not in need of funds.”

“Our relative statures—”

“Of course I don't mean the mere difference in our physical heights. You're a forward thinker, a philosopher, founder of an organization far ahead of its time, a genius whose opinions on serious matters will sway minds for centuries to come.

“I'm a popular entertainer, and nothing more. But I am also wealthy. Extremely wealthy. And I should like to do something of good with my wealth.”

Jackie stared at the slip of paper he held. It trembled only a bit. So large an amount would help immeasurably. With it, the Society could buy outright the additional lands Leopold now offered. Which would afford time to prepare for the inevitable sacrifice.

If the information Jackie had gotten from the woman who'd provided him with Jamison's address was as sound as her posterior had turned out to be, the money was there. The cheque would be good. Once it had been signed.

“You note my omission,” Jamison continued. “I will sign once you promise I'll be allowed to join your colony. I must be able to come and go, to enter and leave as I choose.” Jamison moved to the red brocade bell-pull on the hearth's far side.

Was the man mad? Why not ask to be made an officer of the Society, a trustee? Had Thomson not painted a sufficiently somber portrait of the dangers to Everfair's settlers?

But what an opportunity!

The butler entered. “Clapham, I want to shut up the house somewhat earlier than expected. We're going to Africa.”

Usually Jackie was the one who left others gasping in his wake. “To Africa? To Everfair?”

“As soon as you can arrange passage.”

“But we can't! I mustn't go yet—not till I pay Leopold! We need to buy the land—more land—”

“Calm down! Be seated, sir!”

With a jolt, Jackie realized he stood, hands clutching the empty air. The butler, Clapham, met his eyes briefly, then turned back to Jamison.

“That's all for the moment,” the little man said. “I'll let you know the exact schedule for our departure presently.” He sat down at his desk once more.

Uneasily, Jackie allowed himself to reflect consciously on the Fabians' secret program, the deliberate loss of white lives in a black cause. The plan had been Laurie's at the outset, but Jackie had come to accept its necessity early on. How else to stir up support for the colony except through the deaths of innocent Europeans? And now he thought, who better to fill the role of martyr but a famed yet meritless author?

Still, he could barely admit to himself that violence would play a part in the accomplishment of their goal. He turned and walked abruptly out of the center of the room as if leaving what he knew to be true behind. Then he traced his way back into the middle. Good ends must justify unsatisfactory means.

At his desk, Jamison was waiting. “I accept your stipulation,” Jackie told him. The playwright stretched out his hand and Jackie put the cheque into it.

He nodded and signed. “You'll make the arrangements, then?”

“Yes.” A swift glance out the window: twilight fell more slowly here at home, but he needed to leave now if he were going to conduct any further business today. “Yes. I'll inquire as to sailing times, finish up negotiations with that ass—” He gathered his hat, gloves, and coat from the side table, and made as graceful an exit as possible.

The bank was very happy to receive his deposit, though Jackie explained clearly that these funds would be gone soon. He returned to his apartments and sent for his secretary to take care of the details of the journey back to Daisy, and Everfair.

He'd wait to deal with Leopold and the land purchase tomorrow. In anticipation of the grind that would entail, he penned a hasty note to the woman who'd helped find his new beneficiary, asking her to come to his rooms this evening and receive his thanks in person.

 

Lusambo, Everfair, April 1897

Lisette lay in the early morning darkness, once again alone.

The return of Mr. Owen had hurt her. She was willing to admit that, though not to Daisy. Only to her fanciful memoir's imaginary readers, which was akin to saying: herself.

Of course, a dozen others slept in the same shelter as Lisette. She heard their even respiration, smelled it, a calming, natural scent in the humid air, like recently mown hay. But she was not in love with any of them. They weren't any of them the one she missed.

She shifted her cheek to a cooler spot on her thin sleeping mat. When Daisy was married, it had been easier to maintain the correct perspective. Laurie's tolerance of the two women's burgeoning romance provided nothing like the resistance Jackie's ignorant disapproval did. Coming up with the passion required to subvert that resistance upset Lisette's careful emotional economy.

She ought to have remained heart-whole.

Instead, she had gloried in the reward for her recklessness: the intimacy of her and Daisy's brief month together, the four warm, wet weeks of the holiday season between the time Lisette came to Kamina and Mr. Owen's arrival there. During the day, they had been the dearest of friends, and at night—

Lisette wrenched her thoughts away from where they could do no good. In the morning, she and the others of this expedition would open a new clinic. Here, they were much closer to Leopold's camps, the site of his filthy, murderous thievery. His victims would have shorter journeys to make, and fewer would die fleeing to Everfair for help. Consequently, they would be suffering from worse wounds. She should brace herself, prepare for nauseating stenches, rotting flesh, stories of merciless, inhumane treatment. She should rest—

It was no good. She was awake. Awake and incomplete. She sat up.

Outside the shelter, the misting rain of the “dry” season no longer hissed against her bicycle's firebox. Had the embers died? Crawling in careful silence between her non-mechanical companions, Lisette emerged into the open.

Her solace had been left leaning against a tree a short distance away for safety. She found it in the dark by the warmth still radiating from the steel box hung on its rakish black frame. Gingerly nudging up the iron latch, she pushed wide the little door to the bicycle's sweetly compact furnace. Dim, but not yet cold, the coals shed a changeful, shimmering light.

Reassured, Lisette used the fire's fitful radiance to attend to her toilette. Her bodice had somehow twisted itself down through the neck of her chemise; her stockings had fallen to her ankles. Perhaps she should do as Josina advised and cease wearing them altogether. But that would affect how her shoes fit.

Clothes adjusted, Lisette felt more herself. She shut the door of the bicycle's miniature oven, having decided that the hour was still too early for her to stoke it up.

But then, a rustle behind her. Another was astir. Lisette reopened the firebox and blew the ashes off the top layer of coals. Peering over her shoulder, she saw, revealed by their fresh brightness, the face of the child Fwendi.

“'Soir,” the orphan whispered. She had the rudiments of French.

Lisette responded in that language. “You are in pain?”

“No. Are you?”

Lisette laughed briefly, bitterly. “No.” Though she was, of course. But nothing she could complain about to this girl who had just one hand.

“No?” Fwendi wore only a wrap below her waist, a somewhat imaginary line imposed on her thin body by Mrs. Hunter and the other Christian settlers. “How makes you awake, then?”