Everfair (40 page)

“I assure you—a mistake—slip of the tongue—won't happen again—”

“Of that I'm certain. Had I been more fortunate, the lady—the
lady
—would have become my wife.”

Short-lived satisfaction kept him standing in the inglenook for a while after Thornhill left. Nervous anger drove him back to his bedroom. There it deserted him. He collapsed upon the wide bed, one half of which was so tragically unmussed.

Had he been “more fortunate”? No. Had he been less of a coward. Had he gathered his courage and asked Fwendi to marry him.

In his way, he was as bad as Thornhill; perhaps worse. He need not have behaved so self-righteously downstairs; he ought to have listened to the man's request, at the very least. Was what he had asked so very bad after all? He couldn't know that Matty stood in need not of money but of something incalculably more valuable.

He found he was stroking a sash she had left behind on the bedside table, petting it over and over like some sleeping cat.

He made himself sit upright. Fwendi wasn't dead. She lived, and while there was life, there was hope. He picked up the sash and laid it in the tall basket packed with belongings waiting to be sent to the schoolhouse in Kalemie.

From what Matty understood, Fwendi would not have gone any enormous distance with the school's debut in the offing. Mademoiselle Toutournier had mentioned journeys to Dar-es-Salaam and Mombasa, even a projected trip to Alexandria. But none to other continents.

He should consult the Frenchwoman. Outside the bedroom window, the sky shone a tentative silver. No precipitation. Perhaps he could walk to Bafwaboli Street? One could never tell how the weather would behave at this season, though; he had Clapham drum for a cab.

Mademoiselle Toutournier's “cottage” was a brick-walled house half the size of Matty's. She met him under the awning shielding her large-windowed front door. The rain had, of course, started up as soon as he left the cab to climb the steps at the intersection with Post Way. Moderately heavy, it would have soaked him thoroughly had he not brought his fan hat; as it was, he was forced to hand over to Toutournier his jacket, the ends of its sleeves having grown decidedly damp. She seemed unperturbed by his disheveled appearance. He said as much—perhaps a bit waspishly.

“Naturally. I've been expecting you. Please to come in.” Slinging his coat over one arm, she pushed in the double doors with the other. Without passing along a formal entryway, he found himself in a parlourlike room with round timber pillars rising in a row along its center.

The raucous cry of a jungle bird made him jump. Had it really come from the house's upper storey? He recalled mention of a pet parrot; looking nervously about, he saw no sign of the other denizens of the rumored menagerie. This was Matty's first excursion here, though he'd entertained Mademoiselle on numerous occasions at home with Fwendi. “Why ‘naturally'?”

“
Brigid
has returned; I thought you'd desire to share your letter from Fwendi with me, as I will share mine with you.”

“But I have no letter,” Matty confessed. The years had taught him it was best to deal with his rival for Fwendi's affections honestly. He watched curiously as his hostess hung his wet coat on a pair of wooden pegs projecting from one of the pillars. Perches for parrots? Or for the lizards he'd heard of?

“Ah.” Mademoiselle gestured to a low, padded stool beside a stand holding a primitive lute with its neck shaped like a woman. She took another such stool for herself, and Matty sat. “Then that explains why she wrote that I should show you what she had sent to me.” The wide grey eyes met his. “You have quarreled with each other, have you not?”

Who didn't know that? Matty nodded.

“Over politics?”

Startled, he shook his head. “No! We hardly ever talked of—of those sorts of affairs.”

“Then you hardly ever talked of anything. All is politics; all is power.” She covered her chin with one sunburnt hand, paused, and continued.

“You've never married. Because she didn't wish it? Or perhaps you never asked her? Never mind. Unless it is about that you've come to consult me?”

Again he shook his head, his thoughts confused. Would Fwendi have refused his proposal? The idea had never occurred to him before.

“Then what?”

Matty told her of Thornhill's morning call.

“I have heard of him, this man,” Mademoiselle said. “From Fwendi. Wait here.” She rose gracefully from the low stool and walked with a swish of pale blue linen to a doorway on the room's far side. Disobeying her, Matty followed stealthily to where he could see her profile silhouetted against a bright window as she leaned over a table or desk. An oddly shaped shadow dominated it, something like a stack of books getting gradually smaller and surmounted by a ball or cylinder—a typing machine! As he came to understand what he saw, Mademoiselle reached across the surface and plucked a black square—a book?—from an unseen location. Before she could possibly see him, he returned to his seat.

Mademoiselle carried no book with her when she came back into the room, only a letter, which she presented to him with a brief smile. A letter written in Fwendi's hand, but all in French.

“Naturally, I will translate.” Perforce, he gave it back to her.

“She is well. No ill effects have ensued from the—plants she used to avoid impregnation.”

Matty blushed. Such intimate details—well, he supposed the two women had always discussed those sorts of things, as Mademoiselle stood in some sense in place of Fwendi's dead mother.

He had not known there was really a chance of the herbs doing any harm. Fwendi had insisted on them, had claimed Great-Uncle Mkoi had told her riding often became more difficult for women bearing young.

“In Manono, she learned from Nenzima how this Thornhill attempted to kill General Wilson.”

“What?”

“He is an assassin. Or at any rate, an attempted one.”

Matty reminded himself that Mademoiselle had already read the letter and assimilated its contents. Still, he found her unruffled calm vaguely insulting.

“I should not imagine you were in the least danger. He appears to have other plans for you.” She turned back to the letter. “There's nothing more here about him. Supplies for the new school, logistical details of its preparation—”

“No particular messages for me?” he asked, as casually as he could manage.

“None—save her love, of course, at the end.” A pitying look. “Perhaps she'll write more later.

“Now as to this Thornhill…” She refolded Fwendi's letter and waved it in front of her face like a fan. “If you'll take my advice, you'll change your mind. Do business with him. Excite no notion in him that you're aware of his ill intentions.”

“But—with a murderer? He must be a—a complete swine!”

“Yes.” Mademoiselle Toutournier stood, and so must he. Her manner became brisk. She walked to the cottage's double door. “I believe him to be both a murderer
and
a pig … but better you should turn in this matter to someone else, someone you trust. Why did you come to me? We're no longer close, since Fwendi's recovery, and I opposed you on the question of the war.”

“Everyone did. Everyone on the Mote. You were honest about it.”

“Is that why you're here now? If only Jackie were yet alive … You are amazed? Yes, we hated one another—but we both loved Everfair. And you, you love our country also? Then keep this man Thornhill close, for he means us no good!”

 

Kisangani to Kalemie, Everfair, February 1918

Lisette held her fingers high over the machine's circular white keys. Another paragraph and she would be finished. Was there enough humor in the article? Yes. Enough of the sensual? The playful? More would not be amiss. But what was most obviously lacking was impudence.

The missing elements could be combined, so:

When will you, my faithful ones, hear from me again? To be sure, when those in power least expect it. For just as soon as those dull minds lull themselves to sleep between the silken sheets of their arrogance, the sharp claws of our wit shall prick them! Shall swat aside the dreams clouding their sad and drooping eyes! Shall wake them to our furry, purring sleekness! Our rough-tongued beauty! Our pouncing doom! Our destiny! Till then, I remain, in hidden seclusion,

La Chatte Grise

A knock sounded on the door. No doubt this would be Daisy. Easing up on the pressure she was applying to the machine's foot pedal, Lisette shut off its switch and listened regretfully as the hum of its engine whined lower and lower, then stopped.

“I'm coming!” she shouted, tying the wrapper she wore over her pyjamas shut. She slipped the final page of her column below the other four. No time for proofreading—into the already-addressed envelope it went. She sealed it quickly, firmly. It and the story manuscripts written for profit must be sent with the morning's mail.
Amazing Grace
flew today to Angola, first leg on the shortest route to Rima and the paper, and Lisette's book publishers in New York.

Daisy stepped into the parlor. She would never look—or act—her age. Disdaining even the spartan comforts of Lisette's few furnishings, she sat down on the mat-covered floor with her legs curled to one side. She accepted the tea Lisette offered, sliding closer to the tray and reaching up for the ceramic cup.

“This is good.” Daisy sipped appreciatively. “Better, I think, than we had in England. Fresher.”

“Yes.”

“Though I'm not positive I remember correctly.” Another sip. “Do you think it's safe for me to go—to go back?”

Lisette knew Daisy had barely stopped herself from calling England home. Even after all these years. “You would probably not be one of this group's targets.”

“It seems so … You're sure?”

Sure of what? The list of victims? Her omission from it? “Queen Josina is sure. Alonzo has just reported evidence of Thornhill's presence in Alexandria in the days before and after Jackie's shooting. The poison was weak, and took a long time to take effect, but though I did my best, it was the ultimate cause.”

“You had your reasons for hating him.”

So many reasons. “But that doesn't mean—”

“Of course not! No, I only…”

“I didn't kill him.”

“Of course not!” Daisy repeated. “I merely wish, now and then, that you'd show yourself more supportive of my suggestion.”

“The holiday? To honor our ‘Founder'?”

“To
unify
us.”

She shut her eyes and bit her lower lip. Mr. Owen had insulted Grand-p
è
re, Grand-m
è
re—but he was dead. “I haven't opposed it.”

“And yet—”

“Pay attention! I'm not the only person—not even the most important—whom you need to convince. The king, the queen, many members of the Grand Mote, have expressed their dislike for your idea.”

“Yes, but they don't understand it! Their arguments make no sense to me!”

Lisette refrained from suggesting that it was Daisy who, evidently, didn't understand. Such astonishing na
ï
vet
é
! It was all of a piece, all calculated to make Lisette sob inwardly with the fear that there would never be anything more between them than these meetings fraught with the sight and scent of love but not its touch. Maintaining, as always, a calm visage, managing to keep their physical contact to a rational minimum, at last she was able to get her much-regretted darling to leave.

Her darling. Perhaps Rima was right, and Lisette should abandon Daisy and, with her, Everfair. Beliefs like the ones that had had hurt Lisette must be unpicked with utmost care from the weave of Daisy's mind to keep them from causing more harm. She didn't want to undertake such an onerous task of finding and pulling out the myriad noxious threads of assumed superiority that twisted through her love's disdain of the mixing of races. But who else could? Who else had a good grasp of the problem? And if no one took it on? Who else besides Daisy would want her, by now an old woman of forty-five?

Lisette wasn't stupid enough to believe that in a large, modern city such as New York Rima led the chaste life of a nun. Lisette had not asked for faithfulness. She had not, without asking, expected it. Nor would she travel to America again as Rima kept suggesting, and put their attachment to each other to the test.

However, to stay here constantly was unfeasible. Ever within sight of the one she loved. Ever outside her reach. She would make the occasional journey, a break in the pain.

She recalled the schedule as she packed. Two hours after
Grace
flew west to Angola,
aMileng
would halt on its way to Kalemie. There, Lisette would find the distraction of work.

And as for her little animal friends, her pets?

From her front steps, Lisette signaled the neighborhood's drummer to order two taxis. One she loaded with her manuscripts and luggage and sent off to the airfield. The other carried her to the palace, to her appointment with Queen Josina.

They sat in the courtyard's shady garden. Sifa squeezed juice for them from a bowl of mangosteens. After receiving Lisette's report, the queen pondered her imminent departure.

“Yes. Well enough. I see why you wish to go and come. I will grant your request. Only, in exchange for this, and the loan of Lembe to watch over your home and enterprises in your absences, you owe me a service, my sister. It begins now.”

Lisette accepted. How could she not?

That was why she found herself escorting Mwadi, a royal princess, to the airfield, then aboard
aMileng
's open gondola, and, the next evening, through the just-hung doors of Fwendi's fledgling school for spies.

Her mother's tutelage told. After only a month, the girl received her first field assignment.