The Fever Tree (28 page)

“Smallpox is a disaster for Kimberley, whether I have anything to do with it or not.”

“Why this stubbornness? Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Why do you think?” he asked, looking at her intently.

“Because you blame me,” she said, staggering through the words, “and bringing down Baier is the easiest way for you to get revenge.”

The words had been said, and now they lay between them, ready to be grappled with. The words which would change everything.

“I blamed you, Frances, yes. I blamed you for being seduced by a man who any girl with an ounce of sense would have seen is a fraud. I blamed you for not being honest enough to tell me about it before we were married. I blamed you for continuing to love him when he had proved himself beyond any doubt. I blamed you for being naive enough to think the whole of the Cape wouldn’t know of your indiscretion. But don’t be conceited enough to think for a second that you are the reason I am here.” He drew a hand over his eyes. “Christ, Frances. We are in the middle of an epidemic. I have seen ten men dead this morning, and you have the temerity to suggest that somehow my involvement is because of you? This obsession with yourself confounds even my familiarity with your condition.”

She was speechless and sat staring at him, letting his words roll over her. There was something terrifying about Edwin when he felt liberated to tell the truth. He seemed to have more of it at his disposal than most people. He stood up, looking out into the yard, with his back to her. “I told myself to be patient. I said that in time you would grow up and take charge of your life. That you would stop looking to me to be somehow responsible for your happiness. That you would forget Westbrook and begin to see the merits of the life we were leading. It was frugal, but I thought it had its charms. But you were stubborn and slow to change. Still I thought I saw glimmers of hope. You began to paint, to walk, and to laugh more often. I hoped when we got to Cape Town you would put your old life aside and start again.”

She wanted to say, Yes, you were right, I was ready to do that, but then you took me to Kimberley, but she couldn’t speak.

“When I heard about smallpox in Kimberley, Mrs. Reitz offered to have you in the house at Rietfontein. But I wanted you to come with me. Is she capable, I thought, of rekindling a passion for Baier’s cousin? I wanted to find out. I needed to know for sure if I could trust you.” There was a pause, and he said with great bitterness. “And now I know.”

“What do you know?”

“Don’t think me a fool, Frances. I know where you were this evening.”

“I went to him because I thought he could help.”

“Help? How could William Westbrook possibly help?”

“I thought he might be able to persuade Baier to listen to you.”

“Good God, you’re naive!” Edwin gave a short, despairing laugh. “Well? Was he willing to talk to Baier?” She was silent, and he said, “And you asked for his help and left?”

She blushed, guiltily remembering the conversation between her and William, him holding her in his lap, his kisses, and her declaration of love. Then she rallied. After all, it wasn’t entirely her fault. “You knew when you asked my uncle for my hand in marriage that I wasn’t willing. You knew that I would be forced to say yes. Yet you asked for it anyway. You lured me into it, and you shouldn’t blame me now if it hasn’t been all you hoped it would be. I wasn’t given a choice.”

“Neither was I.”

She looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Frances.” He said her name almost tenderly, affectionately. “You are an intelligent girl, but the world is a more complex place than you have ever believed it to be. I can’t protect you from it, as your father did.” He looked at her for a moment, as if expecting her to grasp what he was about to say. “Has it never crossed your mind that your uncle may have written to me first?”

“Why would he have written to you?” Some truth was nagging at her, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “He called on my debt to your father’s charity.” Still it wasn’t clear, though she felt the edges of its awfulness. “He asked me to take you off his hands.”

She looked at him in confusion. The whole prism through which she viewed herself and him was changing, as if she were seeing him through the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope.

“But you wanted to marry me. You loved me,” she said, as if it were an incontrovertible fact. She thought back to their conversations in London. “You may not love me now, but I know you did then. You asked to marry me before my father died.”

“I did,” he said, as if it changed nothing, and she remembered finding her father with him that night in the drawing room, when he had been unwell. What had her father said to him? Had he known then about the crisis with Northern Pacific?

“Your father asked me to make sure you were looked after. I think he thought it would be better if you married me than went to live with one of your aunts.” He passed his hands over his face. “Of course, it was impractical for me to bring you here, and I knew you would find it hard. I tried my best not to ask too much of you.”

Her world was breaking into fragments. The sense had been drained out of things. Edwin wasn’t at all the person she had thought he was. She had made him up, and he had gone along with her fiction. Why? Because he had wanted her to come to an understanding of her own accord. Because he had thought she would see things as they were, if she was given enough time.

“Frances.” Edwin was talking to her. Every part of his face seemed crystal clear to her now, as if she were seeing it for the first time. The sharp cheekbones, the blond hair pushed back from the bruising that ran down one side of his face, and his clear, gray eyes, which looked at her as if he knew her better than she knew herself. She was watching him but couldn’t focus on his words. She kept thinking, I haven’t known you at all. You are a stranger to me.

“I have found someone to fund a hospital to manage the epidemic. I will be sleeping there from now on. They need me around the clock—at least until I can get government support for the project.” He picked up the envelope and handed it to her. “Here is a letter for you to bring to Rietfontein. Mevrouw Reitz will take you in for a fee.” Things were moving too fast. It was as if there was some invisible line beyond which their marriage ceased to exist, and she had unknowingly crossed it. She needed a chance to catch up with the truth, but he was already standing up. “You may be relieved to know that I have no wish to see you for some time. I shall be in Kimberley for at least six months. When it is over here, I will come to Rietfontein and we will discuss the future.” He had it all planned out. He was banishing her. He put his diary into his canvas knapsack, and she realized he had already packed his things. She hadn’t noticed before that his pile of books was gone from the shelf and his two bags were lined up at the entrance of the tent.

“I won’t be going to Rietfontein,” she said, standing in front of him, trying to grasp control of the situation. “William has asked me to go to Johannesburg with him.”

Edwin didn’t even flinch. She thought she might see a flicker of pain cross his face, but there was nothing except perhaps disappointment. He sighed. “It is no longer my duty to protect you either from others or from yourself. Presumably you know what kind of man he is?” She had wanted to push him into anger, but he was talking to her as if he were a disinterested party, with just a touch of pity.

“I love him,” she said with force, as if to admit no doubt.

“Then you’re a fool,” he said, more in dismay than anger.

“You have always treated me like a child!” she cried.

“Frances, you have always treated yourself like a child.”

“You’re jealous,” she said, angry now. “He may not be as moral as you, but he is more human.”

“The man who died here,” Edwin said. “He was under their employment.”

“And? It was an accident!” she said, her voice seething.

Edwin shook himself as if to throw off the conversation, swung his knapsack over one shoulder, and picked up his bags.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“To the hospital. I am late already, and was only waiting for you to come home. I have asked Tom to watch over the tent this evening.” He nodded to the
askari
in the yard. “I trust him. Tomorrow you should pack up your things and leave.” He put a few banknotes down on the table. “If you decide to go to Rietfontein, I will forward what money I can.” He walked out of the yard without a backward glance.

•   •   •

W
HEN
HE
WAS
GONE
, she sat down, her head buzzing. Her future was mapping itself out without her having made a decision one way or another. She was too wound up to try to sleep. She brought Mangwa closer to the entrance of the tent, tethering him on a long lead rope. The shape of him in the dark was reassuring. He was company of sorts. He stood, resting one hind leg, until at some point in the night he turned a circle and lay down at her feet with his neck outstretched in the dust. Occasionally, the
askari
shifted his weight and spat into the dirt. She sat huddled under two blankets until dawn broke, cold and icy. Mangwa rose instinctively in the pale light and shook himself. She fed him a few handfuls of oats and left.

She went to find Mariella to get her advice. She needed her sanction before she went to William. Two men were standing outside the Fairleys’ room in quiet conversation. They looked up when she approached. One of the men she recognized as George Fairley. His face was drawn into tight lines of worry. The other, dressed in a grubby flannel suit, tilted his hat at her and gave her a crooked smile. It was Dr. Robinson. She could smell the whiskey on him from ten feet away.

“I am worried, Sir,” George said, after greeting Frances. “She doesn’t look well.”

“I assure you, Mr. Fairley, that there is nothing to be concerned about. Pemphigus often looks worse than it is. She should make a full recovery. Of course, there is the child to be concerned about, but I have every hope that she will carry it.”

“Is there any risk of contagion?” Frances asked him.

“No. There is no reason why you shouldn’t see her.” The doctor smiled generously at them both. “Now, Mr. Fairley, we said last time that you needn’t pay me right away. Perhaps we could settle now?”

George took the doctor a little to one side. Frances heard him say, “If you could just wait until Friday, I’ll have cash then.”

“It’s all in stocks, is it?” the doctor asked.

“Yes,” George admitted. “I can show you the receipts.” There was a rustling of paper.

“I’m afraid receipts are one thing and ready money is another.”

“I can’t get at it now,” George said, with withering self-reproach. “The market’s taken a bit of a dip.”

“We’ll leave it for today, but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to see her again unless I can expect to be paid. I’m sure you understand.”

“Can I see her?” Frances asked, when the doctor was gone.

George ushered her into the bedroom.

Mariella lay on her side, the sheet pulled in around the swelling of the baby. Her face and the backs of her hands were covered in a rash of flat, red spots. Some of those on her cheeks had swollen into white sacs, like the bodies of ticks. She opened her eyes when she heard them come in, and smiled, and Frances saw that her lips were covered in ulcers.

“I feel better than I did.” She moved her mouth delicately around the words. “The fever, at least, has gone.”

“How long have you been ill?” Frances asked, smoothing Mariella’s hair out of her eyes. It had sealed itself in dark, wet lines against her face. She had only ever seen it teased into glossy ringlets, and it was a shock to see it lying flat and lank on the pillow. It gave her the appearance of an overgrown baby.

“A few days. The doctor says I will be all right.”

“Of course you will,” Frances said, but she was concerned. The rash itself didn’t look as bad as the pictures she had seen of smallpox, but she didn’t trust Dr. Robinson.

“Have you considered the possibility that it might be smallpox?” she asked George when they were outside.

He shook his head. “How can it be?” She remembered the vaccination office in Cape Town. Could you catch smallpox if you had been vaccinated? She remembered Edwin saying something about it corrupting in the heat.

“Initially, I thought it might be,” he was saying, “but Dr. Robinson ruled out the possibility. He was very reassuring. He said the symptoms seemed similar but the disease would soon pass of its own accord. And, so far, he seems to be right. The fever has gone, and she is already feeling a little better.”

“I think you should get a second opinion. Send for my husband. He will set your mind at rest.” She grasped his hand. “Promise me you’ll do it?”

He nodded, taking his hand back and smiling to reassure her. “Of course.”

•   •   •

S
HE
WENT
TO
W
ILLIAM
THEN
. It was late morning by the time she knocked at his door, and his boy let her in. She sat in the armchair and waited, trying not to rehearse what she would say because every time she got to the part where she asked him if she could stay, her heart started thudding uncontrollably. Would he really be happy to see her when he realized she had nowhere else to go? His proposal had been made on the spur of the moment. He might have changed his mind. Periodically, she heard voices outside, but they always passed by. She waited all day, watching the sun shift across the floor until it had slipped behind the house and the windows grew dark. The boy seemed to have forgotten her. He didn’t draw the curtains or light the fire. It was very quiet, and evening drew on. When it got to nine o’clock, she was hungry and anxious and had almost given up hope of him coming home. Perhaps he had already left for Johannesburg.

Then she heard voices outside. She recognized William’s deep laugh. The door was thrown open, and it crashed against the wall. In walked Leger, followed by William. It took a moment for them to see her in the darkness. Leger spotted her first and said quietly, “Hey, hey, look what the cat dragged in.”