A Spear of Summer Grass

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Now, don’t you even think of flirting with me,” I warned him with a light tap to the arm. “I know you have a wife back in Southampton.”

  He gave me a rueful smile. “That I do. But I can still appreciate innocent and congenial company.”

  “So long as we both understand that the company will remain innocent,” I returned with an arch glance.

  He laughed and freshened my drink. “My vessel and myself are at your disposal, Miss Drummond. How may we amuse you?”

  I cocked my head to the side and pretended to think. “I would like to steer the ship.”

  3

  I did steer the ship, and very nearly ran her into an island, but the captain was most understanding and we parted as friends. When I disembarked with Dodo—still looking a bit worse for wear—the crew assembled to wave us off and even fired a salute. I blew kisses to them until Dodo jerked my arm nearly out of the socket.

  “Delilah, must you always make such a spectacle out of yourself?” she hissed. I tried not to take it personally. She still looked peaky and clutched her basin fervently.

  “It’s not me, darling. The boys gathered to see us onto shore. It would be rude not to acknowledge them.” I waved one last time as I climbed into the car waiting to transfer us to the station. Dodo heaved into her basin while she juggled my jewel case and a strap of books the crew had given me, all inscribed with thoughtful messages.

  The town of Mombasa was just as strange and wild as I had expected, the air damp and heavy with the scent of spices and smoke and donkeys. I lifted my nose, sniffing appreciatively, but Dodo just moaned softly until we were safely ensconced on the train and pulling away from the city.

  I lowered the window, letting in the fragrant spices and the tang of the woodsmoke that poured from the engines. “Here, Dodo, sit by the window and stick your head out like a dog. The fresh air will sort you out.”

  She did as I told her to and soon her colour came back, although that might have been the red dust blowing into her face. She sat back after a while and we passed the next hours peacefully. Dodo dozed and I watched Africa reveal itself. First came the mangrove swamps with their sinister-looking roots. They reminded me of the bayous back home, the branches twisting out to catch at a person and hold them fast. The roots thrust up through the muck, looking as if the trees had gotten up and walked around when no one was looking and had just come to rest.

  After the mangrove swamps, there were acres of orchards thick with tropical fruits—coconuts and mangoes, bananas and papayas, all ripening like jewels as monkeys frolicked through their branches, plotting and pilfering like highwaymen. Beyond the fruit trees, the country opened up to wide prairie, tilting upward like an angled plate and each mile carried us higher. We crossed a few bridges I didn’t like the looks of, and I liked the sound of them even less. Each one swayed and creaked in protest, and I held my breath until we made it to the other side.

  We stopped at every small station on the line to fill the boilers of the steam engines, and at every station women peddlers with sleek black skin wrapped bright calico fabric about their bodies and sold wares from baskets on their heads. I bought bananas and mangoes and devoured them, licking mango juice from my hands as Dora continued to moan.

  I pointed out one bridge from my guidebook as we crossed it. “This is the Tsavo bridge, Dodo. When it was built, a pair of man-eating lions spent nine months gobbling up the crew. It says here they ate more than a hundred men.”

  She gave a delicate hiccup and fixed me with a hateful look. “What are you reading? The Ghoulish Guide to Kenya?”

  I waved the book at her. “It’s the guidebook the captain gave me, his own personal copy. Baedeker’s. Ooh, and it says that the lions would creep into camp and carry off victims, staying just close enough that their companions could hear the beasts crunching into the bones in the night.”

  “Stop it, Delilah. You’re just as bad as you were when we were children, always reading those horrible ghost stories out loud just to frighten me.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I read them to you because you never owned you were frightened. If you’d shown the slightest fear I would have stopped.”

  “I used to lock myself in the bathroom and sleep in the bathtub. Of course I was frightened,” she argued. “You just liked to torment me.”

  “Possibly,” I conceded. “Oh, and it says here one of the stations is notorious for the number of man-eating lions that have roamed around it, eating the builders. The station is called Kima. That means ‘minced meat’ in Swahili.”

  “Do be quiet,” she said sharply and promptly vomited into her basin.

  I turned back to the view and watched Africa unrolling before me, mile after mile of emptiness under a sky as big as any in the States.

  * * *

  Some time later, when dusk began to fall, I heard footsteps overhead. Dora jolted awake. “What is that? An animal?”

  I answered her with a peal of laughter. “No, you ninny. It’s the railman lighting the lamps.”

  Just at that moment, a trapdoor opened above us and a cheerful Indian face peered inside.

  “Good evening, memsahibs.”

  Dora gave a little scream and shrank back against the seat, but I smiled at the fellow.

  “Ignore her, I beg you. She has delicate nerves.”

  He reached in to light the oil lamp and the carriage was bathed in the warm glow of civilisation. He gave a single nod and said crisply, “Voi in half an hour,” before dropping the trapdoor neatly back into place.

  “What does Voi mean?” Dora demanded.

  I rifled through the pages of the guidebook before giving her a triumphant smile. “Voi is where we eat.”

  Right on schedule, the train stopped at a bungalow. Hanging outside was a hand-lettered sign proclaiming that we had reached Voi. In the packed-earth yard, third-class passengers crowded around picnic baskets while first-class travellers made straight for the dining room inside. The stewards were wearing pristine white jackets and serving thoroughly English food from the look of it. Dora staggered to her seat and collapsed gratefully, requesting a gingerroot tisane and waving off any suggestion of food.

  Just as I had made up my mind to order a second glass of champagne, a shadow loomed over the table.

  “I say, I’m terribly sorry to intrude, but there don’t seem to be any empty tables.”

  I looked up to see that the Englishman matched his voice, rich and slow. He was good-looking in a slightly seedy way, and I liked the coolness of his blue eyes. His mouth was thin and possibly cruel, but his hands were beautiful. I smiled.

  “There is a free seat at the table over there,” I countered with a nod towards a trio of gentlemen tucking into bowls of muddy brown soup. “Why not sit with them?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Because a beautiful woman in this place is like a long drink of cool water in the desert. And two beautiful women...” He trailed off, collecting Dora with his gaze. It was the rankest flattery. Dora was not beautiful.

  I waved him to one of the empty chairs as he introduced himself. “I assure you, manners are far more relaxed here in Africa than back home. You needn’t worry about the lack of formal introduction. I am Anthony Wickenden.”

  “And how do you know where home is for me, Mr. Wickenden? I might be accustomed to very casual manners indeed.”

  He raised a brow into a delicate arch. It was a practiced gesture and one I had no doubt he had used often and to great effect. “I think a lady of such sophistication could only come from Paris.”

  I clucked my tongue. “Disloyal for an Englishman,” I scolded gently. “Don’t you have sophisticated women in London?”

  “None like you.”

  I took out a Sobranie and fit it into the holder. Before I could reach into my bag again, he bent forward, a tiny flame da
ncing at the end of his match. I leaned into him as he cupped his hands to protect the flame. I took two short drags, sucking the fire onto the end of my cigarette, my eyes fixed on his. He swallowed hard, and I blew out the match.

  I sat back and crossed my legs. “Tell me about Mrs. Wickenden.”

  A slow smile spread over his face. “What makes you so certain there is a Mrs. Wickenden?”

  “I can smell a wife a mile away, Mr. Wickenden, and you have the stink of one all over you.”

  He laughed, and the suave stranger disappeared. He was simply a friendly fellow looking for a bit of a chat then, and we settled to our dinner companionably. The stewards served up a succession of depressing courses—brown Windsor soup followed by boiled beef and cabbage, listlessly mashed potatoes, and tinned fruit and custard. I picked the insects out of mine and lined them up on the edge of the plate. Wickenden didn’t even bother.

  “You’ll get used to it in time. Insects and dust will be half of every meal you consume out here.” Between indifferent bites he told me a little about himself. He was on his way home to his farm outside Nairobi. He had been in Africa for many years, having come out as a boy with his parents. He had tried—and failed—to farm a variety of crops and had decided to turn his hand to breeding racehorses.

  “That’s what I was doing in Mombasa,” he said smoothly, “looking at some fresh stock.”

  He was testing out the lie, I could tell, seeing how well it fit his tongue before he tried it at home. I shrugged. I wasn’t his wife; it didn’t matter to me what he’d really been up to in Mombasa, but even I knew it wasn’t exactly a hot spot for horse-trading.

  I told him about Fairlight and he leaned forward, almost dragging a cuff in his custard. “Hold on, now. You know Sir Nigel?”

  “He was my stepfather,” I explained. “He has very sweetly put Fairlight at my disposal while I rusticate.”

  “But we’re neighbours!” he exclaimed happily. He had drunk the better part of a bottle of gin at that point, which might have accounted for his excitement, or maybe a new face in the Kenyan bush was just that much of an event. Either way, it was nice to be welcomed, and I told him so.

  “More than welcome, my dear. You must come to dine with us at Nyama Ranch.”

  “Us?” I teased.

  He had the grace to smile. “Yes, us. Nyama is owned by my wife’s aunt. Jude and I live there with her. Sort of keeping the old girl in line, you understand. Not as young as she used to be.”

  Oh, I understood perfectly. Poor feckless Wickenden had gambled himself into the poorhouse with his farming experiments and had no choice but to live off his wife’s money now. I wondered who was footing the bill for the racing stables.

  We finished our drinks and towed Dora onto the veranda for brandy and cigars. I liked my Sobranies, but I loved a good cigar. It was like French-kissing fire. Dora had long since grown immune to my occasional indulgence, but Wickenden lit up like a boy who had just seen his first naughty photograph.

  “How deliciously scandalous,” he breathed. He leaned close to my ear, whispering a few inappropriate suggestions, but I pretended not to hear. A steward rang the veranda bell just then, sounding the signal for passengers to board the train. Dora hurried on, but Wickenden caught my hand.

  “Silly girl. We needn’t go yet. It takes ages to warm those damned engines up. Unlike mine,” he finished, sticking a fat, limp tongue in my ear.

  I turned to smile at him as I took the end of my cigar and held its glowing tip to his trouser leg. It took less time than I would have thought. The linen of his suit was excellent quality, woven so fine the cigar burned right through and singed his skin before he realised what was happening. He jumped up, scattering sparks and swear words into the darkness.

  I swayed off towards the train as he hurled a variety of names at my back. As usual, they rolled right off, and I returned to the carriage to find that the beds had been made up with fresh linen and blankets and Dora was already tucked up for the night. She had left out my night things as well as a jar of my cold cream from Elizabeth Arden. A better lady’s maid would have stayed up to put away my clothes, but I had to make allowances. She was family after all. I stripped off my dress and underthings and began to wash.

  “Did he make a pass?” She didn’t look up from her book, but the fact that she was reading meant she was feeling better. I glanced at the title. Meditations on the Song of Songs.

  “He did, and a clumsy one at that. No finesse at all.” I dried myself and began rubbing in the cold cream.

  “What did you do?”

  “Burned him with my cigar.”

  She smothered a laugh and returned to her book as I snuggled down in the covers. The train pulled away, blasting its whistle into the long African night.

  * * *

  The next morning we stopped for breakfast at another of the innumerable stations, and I ate a plate of surprisingly tasty eggs with a few questionable sausages and a bowl of cut tropical fruits spritzed with lime. Dora nibbled at corn gruel and weak tea, and when it didn’t immediately reappear, she added an egg and some toast.

  “Do you realise that’s the first full meal you’ve eaten since Marseilles?” I asked, helping myself to a slice of her toast.

  She perked up. “Really? Do you suppose I’ve lost weight?”

  Dora’s hips were the bane of her existence. She spent most of her time slimming—a vain effort in more ways than one.

  “Hard to tell in that frock,” I answered, slathering the toast with passionfruit jam.

  She pulled a face. “I don’t suppose it’s very becoming, but you know I don’t really understand clothes.”

  I shrugged. “You’re fighting a losing battle anyway, Dodo. Straight lines don’t flatter your figure,” I told her. Dora’s shape might have been fashionable in Edwardian times, but fashions had changed and unfortunately Dora’s body didn’t. The pouter-pigeon silhouette which came naturally to her—heavy breasts and rounded hips—was hopelessly out of date. There wasn’t a dress to be had in all of Paris that would have complemented her small waist and Junoesque curves. It was all slim seams and clinging fabrics that conspired to make her look lumpy and dull. Her hair didn’t help. It was nice enough—the colour of dark honey and rippling like a windy pond when she took it out of the pins. But it was long enough she could sit on it and the roll she wore at the nape of her neck made her look like someone’s grandmother. All that hair gave her a perpetual headache, too, but it just went hand in hand with her digestive troubles.

  “Then there’s no point to my bothering about clothes since nothing looks good on me anyway.”

  I didn’t trouble to respond. Usually Dora had as much vanity as a dust mop, but every once in a while she got onto the subject of her own dowdiness and when it came to feeling sorry for herself, Dodo could ride that hobby horse until the paint wore off.

  After we boarded the train again with the other passengers—I was amused to see that Mr. Wickenden was markedly less friendly when he was nursing a small burn and a large hangover—we set off on the last leg of our trip to Nairobi. Here the plains were vast, opening up before us like an invitation. There were clusters of bushes and in the distance I could make out moving shapes I was certain were herds of wildebeest. I pointed out to Dora the sight of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the distance to the south, just over the border in German-controlled Tanzania.

  “Look at its snowy peak,” I instructed her as I thumbed through the guidebook. “It’s as if the mountain were wearing a clever little nightcap. It says here that Mt. Kilimanjaro used to belong to the Kenyan side of the boundary until Queen Victoria decided to smudge the border a bit to give the mountain to her grandson for his birthday.”

  Dora was fixed on the view. “That explains a good deal of what was wrong with the Kaiser. If the Queen of England and Empress of India is willing to redraw a
map to give you an entire mountain as a birthday present, it’s just a small step from there to thinking you have a right to plunge the whole world into war and kill thousands of people.”

  I didn’t say anything, but Dora was familiar enough with my silences to know a sharp one.

  “I’m sorry, Delilah. I didn’t think.”

  I shrugged. “It’s been nine years since Johnny died. I should be able to talk about the war without falling to pieces.”

  We were quiet a moment, then Dora sat up, exclaiming, “Zebra! A whole herd of them, running alongside the train—look, Delilah, here they come!”

  Sure enough, an entire herd of zebra had apparently decided to keep pace with the train, which wasn’t very hard to do. The poor old engine could have been outrun by a small child with a limp. But the zebra were making an event of it, tossing their short manes and snorting as they ran alongside. They were so close I could almost put a hand out and touch one stripy coat. Dora and I hung out the window to yell encouragement to them as they kicked up clouds of fine red dust that settled in our mouths and ears.

  “We look like red Indians,” I told her.

  “Don’t smile so much—it’s getting in your teeth,” she answered, smiling just as broadly.

  Other passengers were hanging out as well to snap photographs or just feel the cool savannah breeze as it passed. I could smell the zebra, a horsey odour of sweat and grass and something musty riding just underneath. I was still smiling when Dora turned to me.

  “I’ve often wondered—did you love any of them? The others who came after Johnny?”

  She didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at her. Some questions are so direct the only way to ask them is sideways.

  “What would you say if I told you I loved all of them and none?”

  “I’d say you were dodging the question.”

  “Then call me the Artful Dodger,” I told her.