The Madmans Daughter

by Megan Shepherd

Page 17

  Author: Megan Shepherd

  Montgomery looked up from cleaning a rifle on the table. He jumped to his feet, wiping his hands on a rag. Just seeing him made me blush, remembering the near kiss in my room that had unwittingly transformed him to Edward in my dream.

  But maybe I’d been misinterpreting. Maybe Montgomery had just been caught up in the dizzying memories of the past, and it hadn’t meant anything more. I’d been the one practically throwing myself against him, after all. The ways of men and women were such a puzzle. And I could barely decipher my own feelings, let alone anyone else’s.

  Father put down his book and looked me over. “Ah, you’re wearing one of Evelyn’s dresses. She didn’t like it, I seem to recall. Too plain. Come sit and have a cup of tea. You’ve missed breakfast by a few hours, I’m afraid. ”

  My feet stumbled into the room on his order. A strange sensation overcame me, as though I were stepping into a memory. Something about the placement of the furniture perhaps. Or the smell of Father’s tobacco. Something from long ago that had sunk into that delicate space between the conscious and subconscious.

  I rested my fingertips on the back of the sofa, trying to remember. The feel of the worn velvet evoked shadows of a memory. I stared at my fingers. Had I seen that sofa before?

  The memory almost surfaced, but one of the island natives entered, frightening it away. Dressed in a loose cotton shirt and old blue military trousers, he carried a tea tray and sandwiches. I tried not to stare. Balthasar and the little boy were abnormally hairy, but this man hadn’t a hair on him. Instead, his scalp was covered with lumpy, flesh-colored skin like scales. He was thin, normal height, with nervous eyes, and whereas the others lumbered with their strange legs, he slunk about. He set the tray on the coffee table too abruptly, rattling the cups. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, where I saw that the scaly affliction continued to his fingertips.

  “Ah, thank you, Puck. ” Father smiled.

  The man’s shifty eyes looked me over, like he’d never seen a woman before. For all I knew, maybe he hadn’t. He slunk off toward a back room, and I let out an exhale.

  A clock on the mantel ticked loudly. Tick, tick, tick. Like the pulsing of my veins. “Where did you get this sofa, Father?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you remember. You were so young. ” At my questioning look, he motioned to it. “It’s from the house on Belgrave Square. ”

  Belgrave Square. Now I remembered. The sofa, the green chair, the writing desk by the window. This had been our furniture. The same sofa I used to nap on as a little girl. A tear in the fabric ran along the seam. I slid a finger over it, as if by magic I could sew it shut. “Everything was auctioned off years ago. How did you find it?”

  “It’s Montgomery’s doing,” he said, pouring a cup of tea. “A chair is a chair, if you ask me, but he wanted them. And he’s a knack for finding things. ” He waved a hand toward the bookshelf by the window. “He’s collected quite a variety of trinkets. You’ll remember some of them, no doubt. But first, sit down. You’re making me nervous, hovering about. You too, Prince. We’re going to have to find some use for you, you know. ”

  I glanced at Edward. He settled slowly into one of the worn leather chairs, and I took the sofa. Father poured me a cup of tea. “You’ve slept half the day away. How are you feeling? You’ve been diligent about your injections, I hope. ”

  “Yes. I feel well. Although . . . ” I took a sip of tea, wishing it would soothe my trembling voice. “I woke in a nightdress that wasn’t mine. I wondered if someone else had been in my room. ” I spied Montgomery from the corner of my eye. If not Edward, then maybe . . . ?

  Father dismissed it with a wave. “Oh, that was Alice. She found the nightdress in your mother’s trunk. Ah, speak of the devil. ” His gaze hovered in a space behind my left ear. “Come meet our guests, Alice. ”

  A shiver tickled the back of my neck. Had there been another person in the room behind me, and I hadn’t noticed? And another woman, on this island full of men? I twisted to look.

  A girl, two or three years younger than me, stood in the shadows at the rear of the room. I started. There wasn’t a single twist to her joints or hunch to her back. Her frame was small but perfectly proportioned. I realized that after being surrounded by the natives’ lilting gaits and protruding jaws, it was her ordinariness that struck me as odd.

  “Don’t be shy,” Father said. “This is my daughter. You’ve heard Montgomery and me speak of her. Come introduce yourself. ”

  The girl stepped hesitantly out of the shadows, her chest rising and falling quickly. She was pretty in a natural way, though not entirely without deformity. Her upper lip split and curled to the base of her nose. A harelip. She hid her mouth behind her fingers as she gave me an almost imperceptible nod. She needn’t have felt so self-conscious. A harelip might have caused her great distress in England but was a minor blemish compared to the islanders’ deformities.

  “Pleased to meet you, miss,” she said so softly I could barely make it out. Her eyes were wide as marbles. Her gaze darted to Montgomery, as if seeking reassurance.

  Father waved absently toward Edward. “And of course you met Mr. Prince last night. ”

  She studied the floorboards with those big eyes and didn’t utter a word. I imagined she’d never met a fine young gentleman before. With his loose hair and dirty boots, Montgomery hardly counted as one.

  “Now, Alice, won’t you see if Balthasar needs help with the animals?”

  She ducked her head and slipped across the room. She paused at the door to speak to Montgomery. They exchanged a few words I couldn’t hear. Then he laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled.

  I quickly looked away, feeling like I had observed something I shouldn’t. I realized that I was new to the island, but Montgomery wasn’t. This was his home. He’d likely known Alice for years.

  “And you, Montgomery, see if Puck and the others have the cargo stowed. I don’t want the rats getting into it like last time. ”

  Obediently, Montgomery went to the door, where a canvas jacket hung on a peg. A light rain had begun to fall outside. He slipped the jacket on before going into outside. It jabbed me like a thorn in the side that he was so quick to do Father’s bidding when he wasn’t a servant anymore. I stood up and went to the bookshelf to find the trinkets Montgomery had collected.

  The top row was filled with books that I vaguely remembered from my childhood. Agrippa, Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus. Shakespeare’s full collection, bound in green with gold embossment. Troilus and Cressida, Edward III, Twelfth Night. I traced the gold lettering with my fingers, trying to remember the stories Father had read. On the next shelf were more books, a glass bottle, and a tin of pipe tobacco. I unscrewed the lid and inhaled deeply. “You used to smoke this back in London. Your professor friend brought it to you from the Caribbean. ”

  “Quite right. Professor von Stein. Now that was a man who knew his way around a bottle of brandy. Brandy and a cigar at the Café du Lac, overlooking London Bridge. It didn’t come much better. ”

  I didn’t tell him that Professor von Stein had been the one who’d found me employment at King’s College after his banishment. Nor that the professor, like all of Father’s previous colleagues, had renounced his friendship and slandered him as a monster to any who would listen.

  “If you liked it so much, why trade it for such an uncivilized place?” Edward asked.

  I only half listened to them. I wanted to hear Father’s answer, but on the second shelf down I found a framed photograph that consumed my attention. A woman holding a baby in a christening gown. I picked up the frame.

  “Curious, are you, Prince? Well, it wasn’t totally uncivilized. There were some Anglican missionaries that came on the ship with us. It was from them that I heard of the island’s existence. Thought they’d make a paradise of it. ” He stared into the bottom of his empty cup. “But they are long gone. �
��

  “And you’ve never returned to England?”

  “Montgomery makes the voyage if there’s need. Most of our supplies can be acquired from traders passing to Australia or Fiji, though by and by there comes an errand that requires a longer voyage. ”

  Their conversation was like rustling leaves in the background. I stared at the picture, transfixed. The woman was my mother. Her young face was so beautiful, so smooth. In her final weeks, she’d looked as worn as Death.

  Puck came through the doorway, quiet as a murmur. He whispered something in Father’s ear. Father glanced at the ticking clock on the mantel.

  “I’ll have to miss lunch and supper,” Father announced. “I started on a new project last night that requires myimmediate and prolonged attention. ” He stood and kissed me briefly on the temple, like I was still just a child. Like I hadn’t traveled so far and risked so much to find him.

  I shouldn’t have expected him to change. He’d disappear into his laboratory for days, and I’d be lucky to glimpse him at mealtimes. Just like it used to be.

  Edward drummed his fingers on the arms of the leather chair, watching. His jaw twitched slightly.

  I got the sense he understood my feelings. He’d left England to get away from his own father, after all, though he’d been evasive about the details. He’d done something, something that seemed to haunt him long before the Viola sank. Anyway, he had to know a thing or two about domineering fathers.

  But this time, Father didn’t disappear into the laboratory. His black eyes glanced at the frame in my hands and then searched my face. “Let me make this up to you. Tomorrow we’ll take a picnic to a point where you can see all the island. I am curious to know what kind of person my daughter’s become. ”

  My lungs expanded, filling with fresh air and childlike happiness. I glanced at Edward, beaming. But he’d gotten up, arms folded tight, his back to me as he looked out the window.

  And then Father said the one thing I’d most hoped to hear. “I’m glad you came, Juliet. ”

  Sixteen

  THE NEXT DAY WE were to leave in the early morning before the afternoon sun made travel through the jungle a miserable affair. I waited anxiously, but Montgomery came at dawn, already sweating and smelling of horse, and told me there’d been a problem. An accident on the far side of the island. Some natives injured—one even killed. The picnic would be delayed a day. That day passed, and then another, and another, and Montgomery stopped bothering to tell me. Father was in charge of the island, so naturally he had duties and responsibilities more pressing than a picnic. But that didn’t begin to fill the hollow pit of my disappointment.

  I spent those first few days exploring the compound, putting my cleaning skills to use when I could. It was a simple place, a farmstead, and the order and logic behind it was pleasing. Everyone had a job, even the little boy Cymbeline, who picked peas from the garden and fed the chickens. There was nothing of London’s chaos and filth and crowds and mechanization. After a few days, I got used to the rhythm of island life. I could have a future here, I thought. The idea made my head spin.

  Alice stayed mostly in the kitchen, half hidden by woodsmoke and her own shyness. Edward kept to himself as well, brooding as if the island’s desolation made him anxious, though I managed to get one game of backgammon from him.

  One morning, as I was brushing my hair with the silver comb, I heard a soft rap at the door.

  “Yes?” I said, turning the knob. Alice stepped back shyly, keeping her scarred face turned away. Her fair hair looked shockingly white in the early daylight, and her eyes locked on the silver comb in my hand.

  “The expedition will be leaving shortly, miss. The doctor asked me to see if you were ready. ”

  “What expedition?”

  “Well, the picnic, miss. ”