Sound of Butterflies, The

by King, Rachael

  She turns her back to the window and closes her eyes. She falls asleep and dreams she needs to urinate. In the dream, she walks around town, and people offer her chamber-pots, whipping them out from beneath their coats like a conjuring trick, triumphant looks on their faces. To use one, she would have to lift her heavy skirts and squat right there in the street. So she continues her walk, but every bush she comes to leaves her wide open to public view. She becomes so desperate that she takes a pot off a shrewd-faced man with narrowed eyes, who offers it to her with hands that are red and raw. She tries to use it, but the man has called a crowd of witnesses, and Sophie finds that she can’t ease her bladder with an audience, with the man staring at her with his tiny eyes.

  The pressure in her abdomen wakes her eventually, and she knows the only way to calm her dreams is to get out of bed. She gropes for the chamber-pot and squats over it. Hot needles pierce her feet as she splashes herself, and she curses. She closes her eyes and relief spreads through her as the moisture on her feet quickly cools. When she opens them again, it is so dark all she can see is the violent purple light that presses against her eyelids. There is a tap at the window and then another, more insistent. She lurches to her feet — the moth won’t leave her alone; it’s taunting her now — and as she does so, her foot catches the pot and there is a moment of terrible silence before the floor is sluiced with her piss.

  She gropes around for a towel and starts to cry as she mops up her mess, knowing that the smell will be appalling, that it will seep into the floorboards and stay there long after they have been scrubbed clean. She hears tapping at the window again, but when she throws back the curtain, she sees that it’s not the moth but a small branch of the plum tree that has come loose in the wind and brushes the window lightly, its spring buds kissing the pane.

  ‘Good morning,’ Sophie says to her husband when he comes into the parlour. He sits down opposite her, in front of the table setting of one boiled egg, a slice of toast and the best silver.

  ‘Tea?’

  She waits for him to answer, but instead he picks up his cup and holds it out to her. He looks directly into her face, expectant.

  Sophie picks up the silver teapot and begins to pour. Together they watch the thin arc of liquid as she pumps her wrist down and up and back down again. Not a drop spilled. He bobs his head so slightly that she supposes it must be a nod of gratitude, but he might just as easily be catching an itch in his collar.

  She doesn’t know what to do, so she talks: about the weather; about the house repairs she organised while he was away — the back door practically dropped off its hinges one day; about the river and how it rose to swallow the fields last autumn; about who got married in the neighbourhood — you won’t believe who Miss Prym is marrying (only the arrogant Mr Winchester!); about the state of her health — good on the whole. Thomas, meanwhile, slurps his tea and gulps down his egg. He drops his sleeve into the yolk, and cleans it off by bringing it to his mouth and sucking. His little tongue flicks out like a cat’s. He sees her looking when she stops talking, and brings his arm down slowly, suddenly ashamed. He turns quite pink. Once he has finished his breakfast he sits with his hands on his lap, staring at them as if daring them to misbehave. He looks as though he might be listening to her, so concentrated is his gaze on his lap, but she gets no reaction to any of the information she imparts to him. Out of desperation, she tells him about her accident with the chamber-pot. She puts it into the lightest tone she can muster: she will shock him into speaking to her.

  ‘So, you see, there is still a smell about my room this morning, and I didn’t have the heart to ask Mary to clean up my mess.’

  Nothing. He is frozen, cold as a pond in winter. She could strap on her skates and glide across his surface.

  She changes tack.

  ‘Thomas, dear. Please look at me.’

  He hears that, at least. He lifts his head. She detects the same look in his eyes that she saw at the train station. Fright.

  ‘Darling. Won’t you tell me what the matter is?’

  He gives an accusatory stare at the salt cellar, lifts his napkin off his lap and puts it down on his plate with a shaking hand. He pushes his chair back and leans forward as if he means to rise.

  ‘No!’ she says.

  He stops and looks at her like a startled deer.

  ‘Please don’t walk away, Thomas.’ She reaches across the table and grasps his hand. He transfers his desultory stare to her wedding ring.

  But what can she say to him? She doesn’t know how to get him to speak, whether asking questions will only make him back away. Why is he making it so difficult for her?

  ‘Why did you stop writing to me?’

  Again, nothing. His hand quivers under hers. Perhaps she should try something easier.

  ‘Are you glad to be home?’ She hopes that this will elicit, at the very least, a nod; perhaps he will take his other hand and stretch it over hers, and she will see something in his face that she can grasp, something that will give her some hope. But there is nothing.

  She picks his hand up a fraction, then drops it again.

  Her chair tips onto the floorboards as she jumps up and marches from the room.

  At the very moment Sophie’s chair makes such a racket in the dining room, Captain Samuel Fale, who lives a few houses down the road, closes the Edgars’ front gate with a clang while humming a tune to himself that he can’t quite place. It goes ta-tum-tum-titum in the most unusual of rhythms, and he knows he hasn’t simply made it up, so someone must have laid it in his mind — whether by accident or design he doesn’t know.

  He flinches as he mounts the stairs. His bad leg misses the momentum and his foot slams into the step. That fall from his horse ended his career in the army, and now his damned leg drags around after him like a heavy axe. He never likes to be reminded of his affliction, but these blasted steps do it every time. A price to pay for good company, perhaps.

  Mary answers the door and won’t meet his eyes. She shows him into the drawing room, drops into a poor imitation of a curtsey — impertinent girl — then scurries away to find her mistress without a word. He has been in here many times in the past six months, but he is always taken aback by how the walls seem close enough to touch each other. The heavy velvet curtains add to the room’s claustrophobic air. Still, it has its advantages — in the winter it’s always as warm as a furnace.

  He sits down on a lumpy chair and almost immediately catches his sleeve button in the worn fabric of its arm. He curses out loud and looks around quickly to make sure Sophie — Mrs Edgar — hasn’t slipped in without him knowing and been party to his disgraceful demeanour. But he is still alone. He untangles his button, which now hangs loosely on its thread, and sits back to wait.

  The door opens behind him. He adjusts his tie and stands.

  It’s not Mrs Edgar. It’s a man, if you can call him that. He looks more like a nervous youth. His skin is ruddy, like a farm labourer’s, but his body is insubstantial; his face is thin and his head looks to be too heavy for the reedy neck that sticks out from his collar. The skin of his throat is inflamed, as if he is not used to wearing constricting clothing. Although cut short, his hair cannot contain its girlish blond curls.

  But it’s the mouth that draws most of his attention. Fale supposes that a woman might find it sweet, but to him it looks insolent, as if the bottom lip is forcing the top lip upwards, buckling it into sharp contours, like the edges of a violin. The lips are obscenely red. He shifts his weight but flinches as he remembers his bad leg. The lips are still there. He can’t stop himself from staring at them. He waits for them to move, for the gentleman — he supposes he must be a gentleman — to say something. But those lips stay like that. Pert.

  Then the man turns on his heel and walks out of the room. Fale sits back down on the arm of the chair, disoriented. He knows he has seen the man before, but he can’t place him. Is it some bastard friend of that maid’s? Has he seen him up at the Star and Garter? Then
it comes to him. He lets himself slide from the arm of the chair into its seat, his legs dangling off the side. A gust of hot air rises from his collar as he lands and he feels his armpits dampen.

  His suspicions are confirmed when Mary slips in through the door and finds him sitting sideways, flapping around like a seal. He struggles to his feet, feeling foolish.

  ‘What is it, girl?’

  ‘If you please, sir …’ She studies the fireplace as she speaks. ‘Mrs Edgar can’t come down. She has a headache. I’m to tell you that she will be in touch.’

  Headache, indeed. Fale jams his hat down on his head, takes up his cane and, brandishing it dangerously close to Mary’s knees, finds his way to the door, where he limps blindly down the steps and out onto the grey street.

  Blasted Edgar is back.

  When Sophie comes downstairs again — when she is ready to face her husband — she finds Thomas sitting in the conservatory. Mary informs her that he has been there all morning. He sits with his chair pointed to the window, giving him a clear view outside. The heavy rainclouds have broken briefly, and a web of sunlight stretches across the garden. He sits very still, with his hands crossed in his lap, as if posing for a photograph. He doesn’t lift his eyes to her when she sits down on a chair near him and takes up her embroidery.

  She stabs the needle into the fabric and pulls it out the other side, while her eyes flick between her work and her husband. A wobbly rose forms under her fingers. She changes thread to begin work on the stem.

  She has forgotten to put her thimble on. Just as she pricks her finger, Thomas leaps up from his chair. He slaps his palms on the large window that dominates the room. If he was speaking, she thinks to herself wryly, he would have given a shout. His body is rigid and he is looking at something in the garden, something that has startled him.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Sophie. She cranes her neck to see past him.

  The vibrations from Thomas’s hands on the window have dislodged a butterfly from the outer sill, and it loops a path in front of his face before it tumbles through the air to the far flower bed and out of sight around the side of the house. It’s just a plain little thing — a cabbage butterfly perhaps — but the only thing moving in the garden, the only thing he could be looking at. When it has gone, Thomas turns away from a patch of mist on the window caused by his own breath. He shakes his head, as if to wake himself up, and lowers himself into his chair again. His hands on the armrests tremble.

  Sophie stands and goes to his side. ‘Thomas. What’s wrong?’

  He closes his eyes and appears to be trying to control his breathing. His cheeks are marked with red blotches, which shine with a thin coating of perspiration. He takes three long breaths, then opens his eyes and looks at her. His eyes are cold, defiant. She takes an involuntary step back and holds her needle tighter. Its spindly edge digs into her flesh where she has pricked it; she lifts her thumb to her face as a bead of blood collapses and slides to the floor.

  Dr Dixon arrives with the afternoon’s rain. He shakes off his hat and places it on the coat-rack, then shrugs his wet cloak into Mary’s hands. She flaps it and hangs it up.

  The examination takes place in Thomas’s bedroom. The curtains are open, but rain pummels the window and the weak light from outside is swallowed by the room’s dark walls. Sophie hangs in the doorway, waiting to be dismissed, but hoping to witness at least some part of the process. Thomas has his back to her in the gloom and his head bowed, attending to the buttons on his shirt. She watches him, a new sharpness in her stare. A thrill of something like danger runs through her — or the anticipation of seeing her husband without his shirt. When it slips from his shoulders, her breath contracts and her hands stiffen into fists. Circular red welts, like small crumpets, dot his thin back. Jagged scratches on his arms are angry and inflamed, and she hadn’t known until this point that he had a bandage around one arm. Dr Dixon hears her reaction, turns with a newly lit lamp in one hand and puts the other on the door.

  ‘I think we should have some privacy, Mrs Edgar.’

  Sophie finds herself staring at the dark-stained wood, her hot breath bouncing back into her face.

  The doctor announces he has put Thomas to bed for a rest. He follows Sophie into the drawing room, where she sits twisting her handkerchief into tight spirals. Mary has started a fire in anticipation of the conversation, but she has not lit any lamps; it is still daytime, after all.

  Dr Dixon tries to explain the examination to her. The welts on his back, as far as he can tell without any help from Mr Edgar, are insect bites that have become infected. The scratches were probably caused by the wear and scrape of the jungle. None of his wounds seem to be healing.

  ‘It may be the stress of the voyage that has done it, not allowed him to heal, but …’ Here he leans forward in his chair and rests his elbows on his knees. ‘I suspect the fact is more to do with the reason why he won’t speak.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why won’t he speak?’

  ‘Ah, now that I don’t know. He’s had a bump to his head, which may have contributed, but I’ve never heard of anyone losing his speech from a blow like that. He may have suffered some kind of shock, I suppose …’ He hesitates and looks into the fire, frowning. ‘Yes,’ he says quietly, as if to himself. The next sentence is mumbled into his chest.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ His manner is doing nothing to alleviate Sophie’s tension.

  ‘Forgive me.’ Dr Dixon raises his voice and looks at her. ‘I said, that cut — under his bandage. It was quite filthy. I’ve cleaned and re-dressed it. Do you think you can dress it yourself? In a couple of days? Keep him in bed. Give him plenty of rest.’

  She nods. ‘And his speech? Will bed-rest help that?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Dr Dixon. Please.’ The warmth from the fire falls across one cheek as she faces him. She fastens her gaze on his face and concentrates on stopping tears. He returns the look, one eye sharp in the soft light.

  ‘Mrs Edgar, I’m afraid I just don’t know.’

  ‘Well, what is your opinion?’

  ‘My opinion?’ He purses his lips and examines the floor for a moment. Then he gives her a smile. Forced, she thinks. ‘My opinion is that he seems to be perfectly sound in his mind apart from this one thing. Have you seen any evidence to the contrary?’

  She thinks about her husband, how he seems hollowed out, with dead eyes.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Although there was an incident this morning …’ She tells him about the butterfly on the windowsill, about Thomas’s trembling hands.

  ‘I see. Are you sure it was a butterfly he was looking at?’

  She nods. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Why would he have reacted like that?’

  ‘It seems far fetched, I know. But he’s obsessed with them. He went away to study them. He went to collect butterflies, but he also hoped to find one in particular.’

  ‘Oh? Which one was that?’

  ‘That’s just it. It doesn’t have a name — it hasn’t officially been discovered. But Thomas heard rumours about it, and he was determined to be the first to actually catch a specimen and bring it back to England. He even thought he would name it after himself — some Latin version of his name.’

  ‘And did he? Find it?’

  ‘He hadn’t in any of the letters I got from him. But they stopped …’ She looks away. She feels herself blushing as she realises it is not just Thomas she has opened to scrutiny. ‘I don’t know if he ever found it. It doesn’t really help us, anyway, does it?’

  ‘No,’ says the doctor. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Edgar. He seems to be suffering from some kind of nervous dyspepsia. I suggest time and bed-rest. And patience. No, please don’t get upset, madam. You could always have him sent away somewhere so that —’

  ‘No!’ She drops the handkerchief and hides her face in her skirts as she bends to pick it up. This she couldn’t bear — the admission that her husband might be insane. ‘I can’t do that,’ she
insists.

  ‘Then be patient,’ he says. She sees his eyes enlarge with pity for her and it gives her a sickness in her stomach. It’s a look she has seen before in others, and she has always pushed it aside. It makes her lift her chin higher; it makes her resentful despite the good that is probably intended by it. She doesn’t know this man; beyond treating her for a cough last winter, he knows nothing about her.

  ‘Don’t badger him,’ he continues. ‘Leave him be. Perhaps all he needs is to be in the loving care of his wife. He has been in the jungle for a year, Mrs Edgar, away from the comforts of the civilised world. Try to communicate with him gently. Once he’s had some rest, take him to do the things he loves. Does he like music?’

  Sophie nods.

  ‘Strolls in the park? Anything like that, Mrs Edgar. You could admit him to a hospital if you want, to have his head examined —’

  ‘No.’ She forces herself to smile at him. ‘I won’t risk that just yet. Thank you, Dr Dixon. I’ll try to be patient, as you say. I’m sure we can find some way to communicate.’

  Two

  Belém, Brazil, October 18th, 1903

  My dear Sophie,

  At last the chance to write a letter. The voyage from Lisbon was shorter than I had imagined it would be, but at times it seemed interminable. I spent several days ill in my cabin when the sea was particularly rough. I can’t describe the feeling very well, but it is as if you would rather die than face the rest of your days with such a sickness in the stomach — and you feel that it will be the rest of your days. However, a few days before we sighted the coast, the sea calmed down and I emerged refreshed and able to drink some water, and even hold down some food.