Everfair (8 page)

The other three. Lily, George, and—“Rosalie, too?” Ellen's daughter. As the world reckoned these things. “Rosalie and Lily and George are—are coming? Here? But he—” She had to make it make sense. Never much interested in the girls, Laurie'd always taken great pride in fathering his two boys. “He would want George. So why? Why—”

“George refused to go back.”

Which would hardly have been an impediment. There must be more. The red-tailed parrot scolded them from a high, safe branch. She caught a glimpse of leaves rustling as it hopped from one perch to another. Then her eyes went back to Jackie's face, seeing it clearly now: jaw held grimly square beneath his brown beard. Eyes glazed with tears under brows jutting low like protecting bluffs.

The parrot squawked indignantly. It disliked having to roost near the trees' tops, but wouldn't descend any lower with Jackie about. “Come inside.” As Daisy invited Jackie in she realized this was their first time alone together in compromising circumstances, despite months of travel. She was ashamed to have such a conventional reaction to his presence. They were old friends. But a divorce changed things.

She took the bed as her seat again, defiantly. “There is something you're afraid to tell me.”

Jackie laughed ruefully. “I only thought about it afterward.”

“Sit down. Please.” She indicated the stool.

He did. “It was easy getting that blight—getting Laurie to leave Lily with me, and he was practically silent when Ellen protested letting Rosalie stay behind, feeble enough protests anyway … He wanted George, though. His oldest, primogeniture, you know, a powerful idea even if it
is
a legacy of feudalism and tainted beyond— But never mind all that. Thing is, George very much wanted to stay in Africa. Fourteen, almost a man—why shouldn't he? And I knew you'd miss him. So I—” He covered his forehead with one large-palmed hand.

“So I lied. I claimed George as my own. My son.”

Daisy took a moment to work out what he meant. Then she blushed, which made her furious. “You told Laurie we'd had intercourse.”

“It was possible—theoretically.”

“Yes.” That conference fortnight at Jackie's estate, the right number of years ago. Laurie had insisted on a separate room. Daisy could have slept with Jackie one night or many; he was just a short walk down the passage's soft blue carpet.

“Don't be angry. Please.”

“I'm not. But you think I ought to be?”

He hesitated. The hand came down from his face and he gazed at her, unblinking. “Adultery will make his claim of your unfitness as a wife—more difficult to dismiss.”

Ah. Laurie's adultery had never mattered. Hers, however, was grounds for divorce. “But I don't wish to dismiss his claim.” Let they two be put asunder. She had loved her husband, once. But now, Lisette …

“Don't you see? Such a character flaw as that? If George or Rosalie or even Lily is ever found within British jurisdiction again, their father will take them away from you instantly. They'll be his. No recourse.

“I
am
sorry.”

“You're right.” Appalled, she felt the numbing cold run off and drain away. “You're … right.” Oh, her heart, hot and dry and hollow—but they were coming here, coming now, all but—“Laurie Junior? No hope they'll let me have him? If I fight?” Solicitors and pleadings, long, weary months of it, and that would mean leaving the three older children here, or taking them with her into jeopardy.

“Not a single judge on Earth will award him to you now.” Which was only what Daisy knew already. Laurie's indiscretions meant nothing; hers, far too much.

“I'm sorry,” Jackie repeated. “Truly. I only meant to help.”

“Thank you.” She tried to feel grateful. She would have George. And the girls. Unless she went back home.

No. Unless she went back to England. She opened eyes she hadn't known she'd shut and looked around in a circle at the sturdy walls, boards stitched tight over thick layers of banana leaves. Her charming cottage. Home would have to be here.

 

Bookerville, Everfair, December 1895

Jesus didn't mean for her to die here. Mrs. Martha Livia Hunter glared at the filthy white man before her, daring him to raise his gleaming gun. The wooden cross she wore on her bosom symbolized her protection: she was on a mission, doing the Savior's work. She lifted her chin, stiffened her shoulders, and felt a faint stirring in the hot, wet air at her back as her fellow toilers in the vineyards joined her on the infirmary's front steps.

“They're not here,” she repeated.

“Bloody—beggin yer pardon, ma'am, but I ain't even told ye their names or nothin!”

He was a brave devil, she must admit, coming here all those miles, armed or not, with but one bearer. “You know the names of your escaped captives?”

“The two what ran away was Mkoi, an old nig—I mean, an old man, and a little wench he took with im, think he called her Fwendi—”

The roaring inside her drowned out what he said after that. She knew them, knew all their patients: Mkoi, half-starved, half-mad, had stumbled into Bookerville only a week ago, yet was on his way to recovery. Fwendi, his grand-niece—the nearest any translator had been able to render their relationship—Fwendi would never recover her amputated hand.

Oceans of rage surged in Martha's bosom—black, clashing billows towering up and crashing down—

“Peace; be still,” she prayed. The words of the Savior calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee: “Peace; be still.” And the waters subsided. And a dove rode down a sunbeam from Heaven and nestled in his hand, soft and angerless as her heart ought to be in his service.

Leopold's lieutenant seemed to have heard her, for his mouth hung open, silent, empty. She must have prayed aloud.

“You had better go back,” she said to the man, as kindly as she could. “You had better go back and tell your friends: you will not find the prisoners whom you are seeking here.”

“Why, that's rich! When they're standin right ahind ye!” The white man pointed.

Martha shook her head, unwilling to fall for this transparent ruse. Then she saw Chester coming down the muddy path at a run, with a smaller figure just after him—George, the eldest child of Mrs. Albin. She smiled. Menfolk to the rescue. As they came to a halt, the midday mist turned to drizzle.

“You had better go back,” Martha repeated.

“Not without them I come for! Mkoi! I'll let you off light this first time if you—”

Martha risked a look over her shoulder. Yes, Mkoi was there indeed, dark face blank as some heathen mask. At his side tottered little Fwendi, right arm swathed in bandages once white, now yellow, brown, and grey; skin shining with sweat; eyes dull with pain and hopelessness. Old at seven.

She would not give the girl up. She whirled back to confront Leopold's man, who had seized the chance to creep closer to the entrance. But now—

“Hi! Let loose of that!” he shouted.

The Albin boy had both hands on the man's rifle, trying to wrest it from his grasp. A second's silent struggle and Chester joined in. A loud report—the gun had gone off! Chester gained control—of course. Martha looked to see if anyone had been struck. Not Chester—thank God! What would she have told his mother? Mkoi, Fwendi, her fellow missionaries, all safe. She turned again to demand that the intruder depart. Chester held the rifle uncontested—his height and build had served him well, as usual. The white man stood combatively in front of him, stubborn though alone. His bearer had disappeared—but where was little George? Flat on the ground—he had been hurt!

The boy levered his shoulders out of the clinging mud, sat up, and made a face. One sleeve, the right, and that whole section of his shirt were streaked with blood. A bullet wound. How serious? He coughed, spat. Gazed up with hate-filled eyes at the intruder. “How many times has the
lady
got to ask you to go?”

The rifle shifted in Chester's grip. Not even aiming it, keeping the muzzle pointed downward, he managed to threaten the rubber collector—without glancing in his direction. Without speaking to him. Instead, he said to the boy, “I'm willing to bet he knows by now he's not welcome.” Her godson's soft tone and gentle words belied his strength.

Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, the white man edged away. “We—we'll be back!” he proclaimed, his voice cracking.

Martha watched him trudge off down the track and vanish into the jungle. She didn't laugh at his promise of vengeance. She had learned from experience that scared men were dangerous. This one would be no exception.

Nurses and helpers carried a feebly protesting George to a mat on the infirmary's dry floor. Martha returned to her “office”: a corner furnished with a stool and a makeshift table piled with paper and barkcloth. A precious lantern lighted it, the gift of a refugee. She seated herself and arranged her skirts as tidily as she could, then set to work: writing a brief report on the incident for Mr. Owen and another, longer, for Everfair's Workers Council; reviewing three conflicting accounts of the church building's progress—optimistic, pessimistic, and incomprehensible; and approving a plan for planting an experimental field with the hidden stock of seeds they'd found. It certainly looked like millet, which was what the Zan-Dee woman claimed it to be. Wheat from the settlers' stores had gone in earlier, and seemed to be thriving well enough, but perhaps local produce would have an additional advantage.

Food stores were running low at an alarming rate, no doubt due to the influx of natives fleeing that papist tyrant. Dozens, hundreds—she and the reverend had not foreseen how many would seek sanctuary with them, nor how quickly. Of course they couldn't turn them away.

Done with office work for the moment, she made her rounds, visiting the infirmary's male and female wards. Martha had no medical training, but knew how to compel people to do what needed to be done. Firsthand supervision was required, though she issued her commands through the mulatto, Miss Toutournier.

Fwendi had slipped into the men's side yet again. The girl kept refusing to be separated from her old relative—perhaps the lone member of her family to survive? Martha hadn't the heart to send her back to the women's ward quite yet. “Let her stay till supper,” she instructed Miss Toutournier, who followed a pace behind. “Mr. Mkoi will help persuade her to take nourishment.” The nurse nodded, outwardly agreeable to whatever Martha wished. Inwardly, Martha felt sure, she rebelled.

Further down the row of mats George Albin slept like the little man he was, frowning, serious. He lay on his left side, right shoulder hunched high, arm folded away from the site of his wound. Miss Toutournier assured her that the injury was minor, a mere graze. Below the bandage the poor boy's pale skin was grooved with shadows that followed the curve of his ribs. “Has he been skimping himself of rations?” Martha whispered, hoping not to wake the patient. In vain.

Blue eyes opened, focusing on her. A smile sprang to his lips instantly, but it didn't last. The boy blanched, struggled to sit, turned his head all around as if searching for something.

Miss Toutournier handed him a shirt she took from a stub protruding from a post in the board-and-banana-leaf wall. She had been young George's governess, Martha recalled. Now she said a phrase in French that seemed to calm her former charge.

“You're all right, then?” he asked Martha, buttoning his stained shirt with scarcely a wince.

“What? Of course I am! That was never the question.” Jesus had his eye on her at all times. “The Lord takes care of his servants.” An expression she didn't care for crossed Miss Toutournier's bold face.

She knelt so her head was level with his. “That was courage on your part,” she told the boy, “coming to Bookerville's defense the way you did.”

Surprisingly, he blushed. “Wasn't for Bookerville.”

She thought she understood. She nodded. “Any good Christian would have done the same.”

Again that knowing smirk from the mulatto.

“But I thank you, nonetheless. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” She stroked his damp hair back from his brow. The red in his cheeks deepened. “You have done well. Now rest.”

“No, ma'am!” The boy rose with her—such a beanpole! He reached nearly to her chin. “If it wasn't for that dose of laudanum, I'd be out of here already—the veriest scratch the rotter's bullet gave me. There's plenty here worse hurt than me, though I'm grateful for your visit.”

Let him think she'd come to the men's ward expressly to see him. “Then may I walk you home?”

The hut the natives and settlers had insisted on building for Mrs. Albin lay on Bookerville's farther side. Martha and the young man stepped carefully, avoiding the largest puddles, but the rain soon fell so thick it soaked them through. Martha wished for her umbrella, as she had over and over again for the past month.

Her wet garments hampered her, and she feared the unseemliness of her appearance. Fortunately, they reached the Albins' without encountering anyone. The settlement's huts, tents, and hovels weren't good for much, but they did provide shelter from the elements, and few of Bookerville's inhabitants would be found out-of-doors just now. However, as they approached young George's home, the low notes of a man's speech issued from inside it.

No words could be deciphered, but Martha knew who spoke—not the lady's husband, who had decamped months ago. Improper for these two to meet alone. Her advent would solve that problem, yet she hesitated, hanging back, catching George's arm to prevent him going ahead of her. Mr. Owen was a single gentleman but he was, at least, a
man
.

Then came another voice, thin and piping. Children were not any sort of chaperone, but their presence did indicate Martha wouldn't be interrupting anything romantic in nature. She let loose her hold on the young man and knocked.