The Luminist (29 page)

While they worked, Eligius pointed the lens to every corner of Ceylon's sky. He studied the telescope glass, letting his fingers trace its curves and puzzling out how such a lens might be made for the camera. “To reach up there,” he explained when Sir John asked what use such a lens might have for Catherine's contraption.

“Your intellect is an awful grace.” Sir John bent over his sketches, which covered a dozen pages of minute observation.

“ Why do you do this?”

“Do what, boy? The map?”

“Yes. What good is it to make a map of a place no one can reach? A map of lamps?”

“A question from the unwashed masses! But I will tell you. While I speak, I want you to look at those lamps of yours. Every well-determined star, from the moment I register its place in the veil, becomes to the astronomer, the geographer, the navigator, a point of departure which can never deceive or fail him. Imagine! A light that can guide you all the rest of your journey. Those lamps are the same in all places in the world. Do you see?”

“I think so. But aren't you afraid someone will make up stories about the stars like they did with the moon?”

“And there lies my cursed head.”

He wasn't smiling, this man who seemed to have found something like tranquility in his lifetime. “They all laugh at the time I spend on the paths of heaven. It's my madness, I suppose. The lights of the farthest cities are the only ones I've ever cared to see.”

He wrote on his paper. Tearing off a corner, he handed it to Eligius. “This is where you are, in relation to the lamps above us. This is your place on the map.”

Eligius studied the markings. Six degrees and thirty five minutes north latitude, eighty degrees east longitude. A secret language that could guide him the rest of the way through the world. Something to look at, should he ever get lost.

 

GEORGE ARRIVED AT Dimbola the next evening bearing more portraits of English society for Holland House's walls. “I am most appreciative of the courtesies you have afforded me,” he told Catherine in the dining room. “I wish for Ceylon to glimpse my portrait of Julia before I ship it to London, where it will hang at the Royal Academy. Prominently, I am told.”

“I cannot hide my curiosity,” Sir John said.

“It is an exquisite rendering of her, I assure you.”

“I daresay. It is the venue, however, that sparks my curiosity. Why here, as opposed to your father's estate?”

“Because the topic is love, sir, and it is here that love is found. That is Julia's own sentiment as told to me on the occasion of my requesting her presence before my canvas. ‘If you will paint me, let it be only here. Let it be of love.' Beautiful words, then and now. I treasure them. Tell me, Julia, did I do justice to your request?”

“I see in it what I hoped to see, yes.”

“I'm glad you are satisfied.”

A party was planned, a menu drawn up, and the day was selected for the unveiling of Julia's portrait a week hence. Sudarma listened and nodded at the recitation of her duties.

George sought to kiss Julia's cheek. She turned from him and went into her father's study. “When does Charles return?” George called after her.

Julia closed the door with no answer. Catherine spoke up. “I expect my husband in the next day.”

“Manner dictates that I obtain his permission. I presume Julia informed you of my intentions.”

“There was no need. From your arrival with Sir John, your intentions towards my daughter have been plain.”

Eligius heard the study door creak. He turned to see Julia's fingers clasping the wood.

“Where will you settle?” Sir John asked George. “Will you remain in Ceylon?”

“I have commissions in London. My status as a portraitist rises and with due respect to Sir John, I am tired of travel. I do not wish to be his stenographer any longer. Nor do I covet a seat at the John Company, though it is mine for the asking. Its machinations fill me with loathing, never more so than these days. No, I have prospects sufficient to provide a privileged life for your daughter. No doubt you would expect nothing less than a man determined to make his own mark on the world.”

“Indeed,” Catherine said. “I'm sure you'll understand, I
wish to hear from my daughter and my husband on the matter of your proposal.”

“Of course. This is no arranged marriage. We are not heathens.” He slipped a pocket watch from his coat, examined it, then tucked it away. “Please tell Charles when he returns not to do anything to jeopardize our union. I carry that message from my father directly.”

Catherine pushed her tea toward Sudarma, who took the cup to the kitchen. “Your father 's friendship is a blessing to us and we are grateful. But a blessing does not produce an entitlement, young man. Julia is not yours by right.”

“I think there's something you should know. Julia, we must speak of it.”

Julia pushed the study door open enough to be heard. “ It is sufficient that I wish to be married. Nothing else matters.”

“Love,” Catherine said. “Love matters above all. If you cannot say it, do not do this. Do not tie yourself to a man you don't love. What sort of life will this be?”

“There are worse things, mother. Better a man who makes himself known, whatever may be said of him. Do you know about father? A sick and indebted man.” She glanced at Eligius, then dropped her eyes. “He is Andrew 's servant, nothing more.”

“I'm afraid it's so, Catherine.” George slipped on his coat. “The John long ago dismissed your husband with a paltry pension. Ceylon needs youth and strength, and Charles possesses none. He is indebted to many. He's borrowed beyond his means and yours, I'm afraid. My father allows him some dignity, I suppose, and a place in colonial society. He has the gift of gab, my father always said.”

“Does he provide a service?”

Her question perplexed them. She was not mercantile, nor hard in matters of commerce. It was simply what she'd always known, come round for her at last. Her good, stoic, intellectual, distant man, whose eyes lit at the equations of law and
governance and at no other time, was just another life that had come to her for want of the ability to survive.

“He must,” George allowed, “or else my father should have no use for him.”

“Then what matter his health,” Catherine said, “or his debts. What matter what he does or can no longer do. He has persisted. That is living, young man.”

“I wish to make myself plain, out of affection for Julia and you. Charles has been stripped of his directorship. But matters are worse than this. I fear, Catherine, there will be no garrisons sent to assist him in this jaunt of his. My father doesn't believe soldiers ought to be spared for someone who willingly places himself in danger so these people might think him a friend. It behooves him to find his way home quickly, for the sake of his safety and what remains of your station.”

“Your father once called Charles friend. How does my husband deserve this?”

“He shouldn't be doing it, Catherine! His duty is to the Court and my father, not these people! If every man with a regret or a sight in his eyes that he cannot abide abandoned his respon-sibilities, who would be left?”

“The sights in my eyes are the only thing I care for,” she said.

Julia sobbed quietly. “If that be the case, it's evident your husband is not among those sights. That's why he roams the countryside, looking for purpose. How selfish you are, mother.”

In a silent moment, the room emptied. Julia closed herself back in her father's study. George departed, as did Catherine. She watched the young man leave Dimbola while late afternoon shadows lay at her feet.

Passing Eligius and Sir John, she went into the corridor where Hardy, winged and wrong, rested on his nail. She removed the painting and set it down on the floor. The nail had been driven shallowly; little strength was needed to pull it out of the wall. A bit of powdered limestone fell after it.

She set the nail's point to the painting. Flecks of black oil flew at her attack, revealing a blight of pale beneath.

Selfish, she thought. The sights in my eyes exclude all around me.

Her face cinched up with anguish. She used the chemical-blackened heel of her hand to wipe her cheek clean.

“Memsa'ab?”

Eligius sat on the floor next to her. “There will be time for tears and anger later. But I think the young Wynfield is right. Your husband is alone out there. Memsa'ab, I know the land. I know what can happen.”

For a moment he thought he'd gone too far. But it haunted him, that the old lion could die with no one. That the gazebo could be empty, now and always.

The light of the gas lamps found a place in his eyes. She saw it quiver, as if threatening to explode. Then it stilled.

“Find him,” she said. “Bring my husband home.”

The Lion's Mouth

HE DRESSED JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT. OUTSIDE THE SKY shed much of its black skin and bruised over with color. Some dark patches remained where smoke rose over fires that had erupted deep in the night. They had never been this close.

The old lion was out there somewhere. Hari and the others were too. Maybe they'd stolen enough to afford a gun. Maybe they'd even fired it by now, and someone had fallen.

He went to the scullery. His mother was washing the tablecloths in a simmering pot. Later, she was to go to market to place a large order in the Colebrooks' name for George Wynfield's portrait feast. Two such orders over the months, he thought, and both paid for in full. Perhaps it would be enough to repair what little remained of the Colebrooks' reputation.

Sudarma poured him tea. It had been steeping for hours by the bitter, soapy taste. “Memsa'ab told me you were going,” she said.

“There's fighting, amma. I've seen smoke all night.”

“Stay to the trees. Don't be seen. They know who works for the colonials.”

“Amma – ” His voice broke. Shame and fear set off terrible equations in his head. “I'm scared to go.”

“Then don't.” She cut the colonials' bread into soft triangles.

Despite the time spent with it, he still hadn't become accustomed to its sour taste. Full of air, and how quickly it turned.
He longed for a bit of chapati bread baked over stones. He missed Matara.

She handed the bread to him. “Take extra.” There was hope and pitiable loyalty in her eyes.
In case you see them and they're hungry.

“I was wrong to bring you here,” he said. “I'm sorry for how you've become. You don't even pray anymore.”

A gentle crack rose in the air. Far away, long-traveled, like the wind through the valley. How much distance did the gunshot have to journey, he wondered, to find us here?

“Go,” Sudarma said. “I've much to do.”

The room began to turn. Sickening black spots appeared in his vision. His stomach boiled an acrid bath into his throat. He vomited tea into a bucket of wash. A pair of pants with pockets. His. Once, she'd told him that she'd cleaned those pants with river water and out of the pocket came the steam of ships that he was fated to take to the wider world.

He wiped his mouth with a trembling hand as the dulled sound of gunshots continued in the distance. Sudarma lifted her head from the boiling cloth and gazed at the pantry wall until the last of the guns fell silent. Then she returned to her work.

 

JUSTICE NEWHOPE CAME to his door only after Catherine stood at the window and shouted that she wouldn't leave until she'd heard from him. Even then, the burly barrister only opened it a crack. “You're a fool to be out alone! What do you want?”

“I must know what my husband said to you before he left. When you and Crowell came. Please, he's been gone almost four days.”

“Gone all this time? He told us only that he was traveling to Puttalam, to meet with village leaders. That's half the time at most.”

“He should have returned by now.”

“Listen to me, Catherine. You don't want to know the things he told us.”

“I know about his debts. How he is beholden to Andrew.”

“That's the least of it. This whole settlement will be asked to leave before long, until the soldiers can put down the fighting. Return to Dimbola and pack. Charles will have to fend for himself.”

“I cannot. He's not well.”

“Nor are any of us.”

“I am not a woman in need of protection. You know what I ask. Will he return?”

For a moment, Newhope looked at her as a father, with kindness and sadness. “This land has brought us great misery. Charles knows it, yet he loves it despite all. I think he will die here. I think he wishes for that. Me, I hate this place. There is no hope here anymore.”

She turned away as Newhope closed his door. “You heard?”

“Yes, memsa'ab.” Eligius stepped from the shadows. She'd told him to remain out of sight, lest this terrified colonial see him as a threat.

“I can't ask you to go any further on our behalf,” she said. “It's dangerous, and you're as hated as we.”

“I cannot just return, not without at least reaching Puttalam and Devampiya. They are far. I must try.”

“I'll come with you.”

“Julia and Ewen need you. If something happened…”

“Memsa'ab, did you ask him if your husband wants to die?”

She took him away from Newhope's premises, back to the road. Dimbola lay in the opposite direction from Puttalam.