The Three-Body Problem (21 page)

Proof, proof! Is everything to collapse because of proof?
I must have proof.
What do I have? Nothing, nearly nothing – only the manuscript, and the meaning that it
holds. A manuscript which I felt immediately to be the fundamental hinge on which the whole mystery turned, and yet whose sense I did not understand until this very moment.

No, I need more, I need evidence. Where can I find it? In Europe, on the mainland – in Belgium – in Stockholm!

It is the only answer. I must leave at once.

Vanessa

Dear Dora,

I am writing to you, not in a moment of leisure, but in a terrible moment of forced inactivity, late in the evening of a day so strange, that I never imagined I would live through one like it. To think that this very morning, I wrote you another letter, in another world – it seems so long ago! No sooner had I concluded my letter to you, than I leapt up, fired by the urgent desire to depart. But for someone whose greatest journey was from the countryside of Kent to the town of Cambridge, and from the town of Cambridge to the great city of London, the prospect of a European journey held something rather terrifying. I hardly knew how to begin. To calm my nerves, I bent my mind severely to a few simple thoughts.

All that is necessary is to purchase a ticket to London, thence take a boat to Europe … and then continue to purchase tickets and take trains until my destination is reached.

Surely many people in these foreign countries must
speak English, and be kind and helpful. Miss Chisholm will fearlessly leave her country to study in an unknown land, for the love of mathematics.

Arthur risks his life if I do not act.

The last thought sent me scuttling out of the house to the small railway station where, quivering with dismay, I forced myself to ask for a ticket to London in a calm voice. It was not so difficult; I purchased a one-way ticket (to the great surprise of the gentleman behind the counter, and somewhat to my own surprise, but heaven alone knows where my adventure will end – I dared not make any assumptions about the date of my return).

Then I sped home to my rooms and taking out a small valise, rather than the great trunk I had when I first arrived here, I packed only my best grey dress and as many underthings as I could fit in with it. Then I put on the dark brown travelling dress. Shortly before the departure of the train, I grasped the valise firmly, put on my small brown hat, stepped out of doors, filled with resolution, and walked perhaps twenty paces. Suddenly, I remembered something. I stopped and turned around – I thought I saw a surreptitious figure dart behind a corner, and my heart contracted momentarily with fear. But I turned back firmly, re-entered my rooms, took up a large piece of paper and wrote upon it ‘Lessons are cancelled for some days’, pinned it to my door with a severe gesture, and departed once again.

Taking the train would not have been bad, Dora dear, if I had not been so fearful of all that was to follow. I sat
down, and observed my fellow travellers, and waited, trying to control my racing thoughts and consider my next step, until the train drew up in the London station. Then I stepped forth and went to the nearest counter, to enquire as calmly as possible how I could get myself on a boat to Europe. I stood behind a British family who asked as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a boat-train to Calais, and I found myself asking for the same thing. Later, I discovered I could have travelled directly to Ostend in Belgium. But what happened was perhaps meant to be, as you will see.

I was sent to another counter, purchased a ticket, boarded a train to Dover, stood in various lines, always clutching my valise, and after what seemed like an endless time of trains, stations, lines and waiting, I found myself upon a boat, for the first time in my life.

The day was fine, the boat lifted and slopped gently in the water; a great many people got on it before and after me, some gabbling away in French, but many as British as you and I. I felt reassured by the presence of these friendly people, and resolved to converse with some of them, to ask if they could indicate a modest but agreeable hotel in Calais, for evening would be drawing in by the time I reached the shores of France, and I thought I should spend the night there, and begin my journey to Belgium as early as I could tomorrow morning.

I hung over the railings on the deck, looking out over the water, and as the boat slowly pulled away from the shore, and England began to recede, I understood for the first time
what is meant by ‘the white cliffs of Dover’, and my heart was torn with emotion at leaving England and all that it held for me – leaving it in danger, as it seemed to me. I felt suffocated with fear that I was making a dreadful mistake, travelling away to no purpose, abandoning Arthur. And yet, as a mere observer, a daily witness to his passive misery, I was so useless – worse than useless! I was walking about the deck, miserable and quite hungry, tormented by the inactivity of travel, when all of a sudden I received a great shock – a shock so fearfully unexpected you can hardly imagine it. Two tender arms were flung about my neck, and Emily – my dear Emily – was in my arms, clinging to me, and talking at a great speed, as though afraid to let me say a word.

‘Oh, Miss Duncan, dear Miss Duncan,’ she cried, ‘please help me! Oh, you must help me – no one in the world can help me except you! I have followed you here all the way from Cambridge, but I dared not allow you to see me before, I was so very frightened you would take me back!’

‘Emily – Emily, what are you doing here?’ I gasped. ‘Your mother – she must be out of herself with distress. How could you, Emily – why, whatever are you thinking of? Oh, what can I do with you, oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?’

My distress was as great as hers, for the idea of turning back from my mission, losing not only time, effort and money but also the courage and the impulse, was dreadful to me.

‘It is for Robert, Miss Duncan,’ she told me, her white little face looking into mine, all framed by her soft dark
hair, her eyes like pools of sadness, ‘
we must save him,
you
must,
you
must
help me to save him!’

‘Robert? Your father’s little orphan? Why, what must we save him from, pray?’

‘From Mother!’ she cried dramatically. ‘Mother does not want him, Miss Duncan, she says she cannot bear to have him home, and she will send him to – oh, to boarding school, to boarding school – it is too horrible, and he is only six, only six years old!’

‘But my dear child, a great many little boys of six are sent to boarding school, and they are all the better for it,’ I began. ‘Just because your poor brother had such a very dreadful experience there does not mean …’

But she interrupted me imploringly. ‘Oh, Miss Duncan, it was not just my brother! Every boy in the school suffered so, only Edmund is more fragile and cannot bear it. Oh, you cannot imagine all that he has told me, and some of the things he cries out in his sleep! He cannot bear to go to sleep, it was so dreadful in school; he said he began to be frightened after dinner, and it went on growing all the evening until bedtime. Don’t you understand? You can’t do that to a little boy, especially one who only just became an orphan! Miss Duncan, shall I tell you a story Edmund told me once? It was about his best friend, a boy called Watkins. Watkins was given a message: he was called to see the Headmaster. That meant he was to be punished for something. He was so afraid he cried. Edmund thought it would be worse if he didn’t go, so he went down with him, and waited outside the door, listening. He said he was very
surprised to hear nothing – no screams. Then Watkins came out, and he was smiling with relief. And he said to Edmund “Thank God – I’m not to be punished!” Edmund said “Why did he call you?” And Watkins said – “He told me my mother had died.” Oh, Miss Duncan, can you imagine it? Can you? It is worse than a prison! Edmund
shan’t
go back if I can help it, and neither shall Robert!’

In spite of my emotion, I compelled myself to express the voice of reason.

‘But Emily dear, if your mother has decided that Robert must be sent to a school, what exactly do you hope to obtain by following me to Europe?’

‘Oh, first I wanted to run away, and send a telegram to Mother saying that I should come back only if she promised to keep Robert. But now, I believe Heaven itself has sent you here, for we are on our way to Calais, and I believe that we must fetch Robert ourselves, and bring him home.’

‘My dear child, I haven’t the least notion where he is, and we could not possibly simply arrive and carry him off! And then, I cannot, I cannot go back – I must travel to Stockholm, Emily. It is more important than anything.’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘I know why you are going – you are going for Mr Weatherburn! Oh, Miss Duncan, of course whatever you can do for him is important – but not more important than anything. Please, please think for a moment if he were here, if he could be here for just one second, and you asked him what you should do now – what he would say? I know he would say that we must get Robert – he is so kind! We cannot leave Robert – you don’t know where he is, but I do!
He is with that horrible Madame Bignon, whom I saw when Mother and I travelled here – that horrible woman who is keeping him for money, right in Calais, where we are going. He was the saddest little boy I ever saw, he clung to me so when Mother decided we had to leave. I only left because she said we might arrange for him to come home, although I had wanted him to join us there and then, but she said it was impossible! He loved me so, and cried terribly when I left … and oh,
he looked so much like Father
! Please, Miss Duncan – I won’t make you travel back to England with me – we will travel together to Stockholm, and bring Robert – I will take care of him all the time, just like a mother, and we will be as good as gold and help you in everything you do! We will help each other – you will see! I have travelled often, and can speak French, and some German, too, you know. And – Miss Duncan, look – I have brought ever so much money with me – all that I have ever received since I was small, and Edmund’s as well, and some more which I begged Uncle to lend me for an urgent secret reason. He did it, and didn’t ask me a single question!’

I hesitated, and was lost. Emily is so lovely, so firm in her gentle way, so tall and ladylike for her thirteen years, so decisive and able and just, that she brought me infinite consolation, and I felt that her presence would be precious to me. Already I knew that were I to send her back, I would desperately miss her loving company. I was so afraid of the long trip into unknown places, but Emily had already taken boats and trains and spoken foreign languages, and she was filled with courage and the desire to do right. I reflected as
these thoughts went through my mind, and then turned to her.

‘We must send a telegram to your mother the moment we arrive in Calais,’ I said. ‘Then, we will find a small hotel. And if the little boy truly lives in the town, we can call on him. But I believe you may be too hopeful. Why should they allow him to leave with me?’

‘They will! I will say that you are my governess and we are calling to fetch him. They know me. And if they want money, we shall pay them,’ she said, and her very voice vibrated with the force that makes things happen. She turned to me, put her two hands on my shoulders, and looked up into my eyes.

‘We are really trying to do the same thing,’ she said seriously. ‘You are doing it for Mr Weatherburn, and I for Robert. You will see – together we will succeed.’

And Dora, it may well be that without her loving help and presence, I would have despaired. Calais was a scene of indescribable confusion; oh, the motley crowds that invaded the place! Sailors, Frenchmen and foreigners of all descriptions, dirty children and beggars swarmed all about the area of the port, which was loaded high with stacks of boxes and bags of goods of all sorts being delivered. I would not have had the slightest idea where to go, had I been alone. But Emily led me to a money-changing counter, then towed me through the streets to the very hotel where she had stayed with her mother, and expressing herself very prettily in French, enquired for a large room with two beds, and even asked if it would be possible to add a child’s
cot. She bade me upstairs as though playing the hostess in her own home, and we washed and freshened up, ‘to give ourselves courage’, as she said.

Then we went to send a telegram to her mother. I wrote it out myself, my hand trembling with the unthinkableness of what I was doing. I was afraid of being accused of running off with the child, and sought the wording anxiously, as she bent over my shoulder.

I left the telegraph office filled with the fear that I would be followed, arrested, and accused of terrible misdeeds, at this critical time. I felt as though I had stolen one child and was about to steal a second. Full of misgivings, and yet deeply convinced that my fears were only for myself, whereas Emily truly walked in the Biblical ways of righteousness, I followed her through winding streets which she remembered perfectly, with the natural talent of a geometer, until we came to a miserable tenement house with peeling walls and cracked panes. There, we climbed to the very top of a horrible and rickety staircase smelling of onions, and knocked at the door. It was soon opened by a thin and undeniably evil-looking woman with a kerchief tied around her lank hair. She recognised Emily at once.

‘
Ah, vous êtes revenue
?’ she snarled unpleasantly.

‘
Oui
,’ said Emily with charming politeness, ‘
voici ma gouvernante. Nous sommes venues emmener Robert
.’

‘
En effet, votre mère m’a ecrit qu’elle enverrait bientôt quelqu’un
,’ said the unpleasant personage. Emily turned to me eagerly.

‘You see, Mother wrote that someone would soon come to take him, and she believes it is us!’ she whispered. Meanwhile, the lady had retired into the depths of her dingy flat, and was calling ‘Robert! Robert!
Allez, viens vite!
’