Sound of Butterflies, The

by King, Rachael

  Sophie takes time to do her hair, backcombing it into a high bouffant and letting Mary set it with pins that pinch and scrape at her scalp. Dark circles puff under her eyes, and she applies powder to them with little result. The powder catches in her dark eyelashes and in the natural light that falls through the window. Her blue eyes are magnets in her face. Such a contrast, the long dark lashes against her blonde hair. She can scarcely admit this to herself, but she is aware that she is taking more care than usual, as if today is a special day. And it is — she will take Thomas out into public; not for the first time, but for the first time into a circle of acquaintances. Perhaps if she is immaculately and fashionably dressed, she can draw attention away from him. She wishes she had thought to borrow one of Agatha’s elaborate hats, which seem to get bigger and fruitier every week.

  With a last look in the mirror, and a pinch of her pale cheeks, she satisfies herself that she is ready.

  Due to the direction of Thomas’s window, the sun has not penetrated the edges of his thick curtains, and the room is as dark as dusk. She pushes open the door silently and listens for a moment to his rasping breath as he sleeps. There was a time when this served only as Thomas’s dressing room and they spent every night together in her bed — their bed, really, though she now thinks of it as only hers. In the gloom, she makes out his arm, covered with his soft cotton nightshirt, flung over his head. Up closer, he seems feverish — sweat darkens the curls that frame his face and she can feel a heat emanating from his body as she sits on the bed beside him. In his sleep, he shakes his head and grunts. Her stomach flutters — this is the first sound she has heard from him. If she sits very still, will he stay asleep and utter some words — the sounds of the bad dream he is having?

  Instead, Thomas gasps and opens his eyes.

  ‘I’m here,’ she says quickly, not wanting to startle him. ‘Shh. You were having a bad dream.’

  He blinks at her before closing his eyes as relief passes over his face. He wipes at his brow with his sleeve, then pushes the covers down, letting the cool air touch his body. She lets him lie for a moment, getting his bearings, before she rises and opens the curtains. A dull wash illuminates the room.

  ‘I thought we might go to church,’ she says. ‘The service starts in an hour. Enough time for you to bathe and get dressed. Mary will have breakfast ready for you soon.’

  Thomas doesn’t nod as she expects him to, or make a move to get out of bed. Instead, he pulls the covers up again and turns over, pushing his back to her.

  ‘Thomas?’ She lays a hand on his shoulder, then pulls it away as if she has been burned. She has touched a handful of sharp bones. ‘Darling, please. You must get back into society. You’ve hardly left the house.’

  She says nothing about it, but she knows he leaves the house when she is not there. She came home from church yesterday to find him in bed, but she tripped over his boots and fresh mud brushed onto her skirts. When she questioned Mary about it, the girl said she assumed that the master had spent the morning in bed; that she had taken him a cup of tea just after Sophie had left and had seen nothing more of him as she went about her chores.

  But now he is refusing to come to church with her. She draws herself up and, without another word, leaves him to his mood.

  The church is unbearably hot — the first sign that summer might be on its way. All around Sophie, people fan themselves with hats and Bibles, which create an ineffectual whisper of a breeze. She feels sweat building up between her thighs and under her arms, and her stays are suddenly tighter than they have ever been before. The vicar holds on to his pulpit with both hands. He stands on a box behind it, giving him the illusion of unnatural height. His voice is soporific as he drones on about this or that virtue and sin, and for the first time she can remember, Sophie has stopped listening. A blowfly butts against the window closest to her and in her head the sermon and the insect’s buzzing mingle and become one.

  Agatha is starting to nod off beside her; Sophie manages to nudge her just before a snore — which she has heard building — is released into the thick atmosphere. If only Sophie hadn’t worn the woollen suit, but had chosen a light muslin dress instead. But all her summer dresses are in a trunk, carefully folded away until the weather is more promising.

  She is aware of somebody’s face turned towards her. Captain Fale is looking at her from across the aisle. He nods at her before averting his eyes.

  After the service, during which the rousing hymns woke everybody up, the congregation files sluggishly outside and a collective sigh ripples through the crowd at the cool breeze. It is as if they have been let out from some prison, the tall church doors thrown open like gates. The jailer stands at the bottom of the steps and shakes everybody’s hand as they leave. He grasps Sophie’s and looks up earnestly into her eyes while his little nose twitches.

  ‘You didn’t bring your husband today, Mrs Edgar?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘He was very feverish this morning. I think he may be really ill.’ More lies, falling on top of one another like dead leaves.

  ‘Ah, that is a shame. Be sure to have the doctor look at him, won’t you? We look forward to seeing him next time.’

  And then she is moving past him and he is shaking Agatha’s hand with a smile, but the two have nothing to say to each other, and Mrs Cotton, behind Agatha, is eager to grab him and twinkle at him about how delighted she was, just delighted, with the sermon.

  Agatha takes the opportunity of the vicar’s distraction to grasp Sophie’s arm and pull her aside. ‘What is all that about? I haven’t had a chance to ask you. Invite me for tea.’

  Sophie smiles at her. ‘Yes, of course.’ She welcomes the confidence she can bestow on her friend. Agatha understands her better than anyone.

  ‘Mrs Edgar.’ Sophie turns as Captain Fale approaches her. He wears his uniform today, which accentuates his strong frame. ‘So nice to see you on this fine day. I thought the whole congregation was going to faint from the heat.’

  Sophie touches her cheek and feels the warmth through her gloves. ‘Yes, it certainly is hot. A nice breeze out here, though.’ How shadowed his face is always, she thinks. Even at church, for which he must have freshly shaved, his beard is visible beneath the surface of his skin. It gives him a bear-like appearance, although he is never gruff with her. His body is a dark mass compared to her husband’s.

  She glances at Agatha, who has been sequestered by Robert Chapman. They stand a respectable distance apart, she is relieved to see, and appear to be exchanging polite pleasantries.

  ‘I meant to ask you,’ says Fale, ‘how are things with Mr Edgar? The last time I saw you he was not so … well. He is too ill to come to church?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she blurts, then stops herself. Damn. She puts her hand to her mouth in case her thought escapes her mouth and she swears in public. Captain Fale has that effect on her, though. He seems to be able to draw out the things she most wants to keep to herself. But she can trust him, can’t she? He always gives her good advice. He is looking at her, waiting, so she goes on. ‘I tried to get him up for the service, but he refused.’ Her nose begins to tingle, a sign that she might start crying. She puts her hand on it and squashes it into her face, covering her mouth as she does so.

  ‘Why, do you think?’ he asks.

  ‘Oh, it will undoubtedly be the crowds. He seems to value quiet, and in his present condition I’m sure he won’t want to face people with their questions and their well-meaning chit-chat. You know …’ She goes to lay a hand on his arm but stops herself. ‘Nobody really knows about this, Samuel. I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.’

  Captain Fale’s shadowed cheeks begin to flush. He opens his mouth as if to say something. No doubt she has disarmed him with her use of his Christian name. She doesn’t know what possessed her, but at the same time it felt right.

  ‘Of course not, Mrs Edgar,’ he says at last, with an emphasis on her married name. ‘But … are you sure it is your husb
and’s worry about the crowds that has prevented him coming to church?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I will bring him here again later, when there is nobody about. Why? Do you have another idea?’

  ‘Only that …’ He shifts on his cane. ‘Do you think perhaps that he has … how can I put this? Perhaps he has compromised … that is, maybe in the jungle he had his faith … challenged.’

  Sophie is horrified. ‘Whatever do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Please, madam,’ he says quickly. ‘I mean you no offence. Please forgive me. I just meant that perhaps he has fallen away from some of his … duties.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that my husband is now some kind of pagan?’ This she says too loudly, and Agatha and Mr Chapman stop speaking to look her way. Several groups continue to mill about, and she sees gloved hands go to mouths, words whispered behind them and nods in her direction. They know, she thinks. They all know. It is no wonder nobody spoke to her when she arrived; she didn’t notice at the time, but now she recalls Mrs Cotton turning her slightly humped back to her, Mr and Mrs Deighton stepping quickly out of her way.

  ‘Please, forgive me,’ Captain Fale says again. ‘I meant nothing of the sort. Please forget I said anything.’

  Sophie finds she is trembling, and to hide it she turns her back to him. ‘We must be going,’ she murmurs. ‘Good day.’

  Agatha, frowning, disengages herself immediately and takes Sophie’s arm. Together they turn up the hill towards home.

  Stupid, stupid. How could he be so stupid? The captain’s walk home is a painful one. His leg always seems to give him gip when he is upset. Normally he gives in to it and takes a hansom cab, but today he wants to punish himself. His admonishments come in time with his shuffling gait and the tapping of his cane.

  Idiot. Tap. Cad. Tap.

  His house is remarkably cool, given the closed windows and how hot it was in church; but it is always cold. Even in the middle of summer he lights fires at night in an effort to warm the place. He puts this down to the sparse furnishing: a décor he has taken little interest in. There is no doubt about it: the house requires a woman’s touch. Mrs Brown cleans for him, certainly, and cooks, but she doesn’t live here; she certainly doesn’t interfere with the house beyond her duty, never offering to embroider a cushion for the hard settee in the drawing room, or to cut some flowers from the garden to brighten the mantelpiece. Not that she would find many out there; beyond a neatly trimmed lawn and a few rose bushes tended by a hired gardener a few times a year, the garden is as bare as the house. One day, he thinks, one day. It will be filled with blossoming flowers and perhaps even a few children running back and forth on hobbyhorses or with hoops and sticks, or whatever it is that children play with these days.

  At least if he had a wife he could widen his circle of friends and stop spending all his time with other bachelors, and with his old army friends, who only keep in touch with him out of pity. He’s not the only cripple he knows — Jack Burroughs lost an arm in the war, but nobody feels sorry for him, especially since he pins his empty sleeve up with his bloody medals. Jack got married soon after he returned; the women flocked to him, and his wife mollycoddles him beyond belief. But those men: they never try to introduce Fale to their wives’ younger sisters, or their own, as if he’s not good enough for them. No wonder he hasn’t found anyone to marry. The men enjoy his company, enjoy analysing politics over a brandy and a cigar, but when they start talking about the war, and the blasted Boers, he feels their shoulders turn away from him, until someone will flick a glance his way, clear their throat and change the subject. It’s not his fault he missed it. It was that bloody horse’s. He should have had the thing shot. He’d rather have died in the war than feel the space that blooms inside him sometimes.

  He drops, exhausted, into his armchair by the fireplace. It is only eleven o’clock, and already his stomach gurgles. At least he has an hour to get his strength back and to calm his nerves before he is due out for luncheon.

  Well, he handled that badly, to be sure. How sweet Sophie looked when she told him about trying to rouse her husband. Her fine nostrils went an endearing pink before she put her hand over her face and composed herself. He thought for a moment she must have known he had met her father at the Star and Garter, when she asked him like that not to tell anybody — he found himself blushing, and his embarrassment at her seeing him in that state made him blush even more. But he had chosen not to speak out about her husband’s condition to her father. For now.

  It cut him up to see her turn away from him so angrily. Why had he opened his mouth? He reaches for the whiskey bottle he keeps secreted behind his chair and takes a swig. She is mad with him now, but might not his words sow in her a tiny seed of doubt? She seems to be the brooding type; perhaps she will go home and think about what he said, start to read a few signs here and there, and decide that her husband has indeed become … a heathen. A non-believer, after all.

  But he mustn’t lose her trust. He will send her a card, an apology, tomorrow. He must proceed very slowly and softly. Perhaps it is time to contact Mr Winterstone again. As a barrister, surely he would have the right contacts to further proceedings.

  He takes another nip of whiskey. Yes, this room is bare. What it needs is some of those lacy doily things that women like to hang over the backs of chairs. Maybe some new wallpaper, something flowery. Is he mad himself? Surely Sophie would never consider divorce. But then again … they have no children. Wouldn’t her husband’s insanity present a perfectly legal case to clear the way to the only woman he desires? All they would need is a good solicitor on their side.

  After Agatha leaves, Sophie sits for a long time looking out into the garden, where the flowers are thriving in the spring weather. Her roses have had a sudden spurt of growth and the buds sit tightly coiled, ready to open. Daffodils nod their heads in the breeze. Crocuses cluster together in the far flower bed like butterflies gathered to lap at a puddle, along with the pretty little violas and pansies she planted only last month. The lilac and philadelphus that line the garden path have flowered and the orange-tinted scent drifts in through the open window.

  Inside, though, Sophie is cold. Thomas hasn’t come down, and she can’t face going to him. He probably sneaked out while she and Mary were at church on one of his secret expeditions that leave his boots caked with mud and, she has also discovered, his pockets filled with mulch from the forest floor.

  Secret. That is the word that Agatha used. I think Thomas has a secret, Sophie. You should try to find out what it is. She gave no reason for this new suspicion, but Sophie is not at all surprised by it. Not after what Captain Fale said at church.

  What if he is right? When she looks into Thomas’s eyes, all that light that burned is gone. It’s as if all the muscles in his face have been paralysed, so devoid is it of any kind of expression. What if he has lost his faith? What would be the point of living without it? What if he wastes away, his soul barren and withered, until he just dies one day, and nowhere for him to go but straight to hell.

  She begins to cry. Tiny, discreet sobs at first, but as she realises that Mary is out and Thomas upstairs with three doors between them, she lets herself fall into her grief as if it were a well: deep and black, with mossy brick sides and a stench of fungus.

  When she has finished, she feels better, but a new feeling now eats at her. How much Thomas has deprived her of! When he was away, she felt truly independent for the first time in her life, with nobody to consult about any aspect of her life. All decisions were hers alone, with no man to override her or take charge — not her father, not Thomas, not even Agatha’s father. She rehearsed over and over in her head, as she glided across the park, just how she would explain to him when he returned that she didn’t want him to take care of her, to treat her as an invalid, or a child, or somebody incapable of any kind of thought or movement, as so many women seemed to be treated. She planned to tell him she would be needing more independence in her life.

  But he has
robbed her of that option. Now she has to be the strong one; there is no choice in the matter. She is impotent once more, with Thomas dictating how her life is going to be.

  She stands and throws down her sodden handkerchief. Blast him! If he has a secret, she’ll find out what it is.

  The hallway is in darkness. With all the doors to the rooms shut, no light illuminates its creaky corners. Thomas’s study is under the stairs and the door has stayed shut since the cab driver stacked Thomas’s crates in there on the day of his arrival. Not even Thomas has been in there.

  When she opens the curtains, light falls as a sheet through dancing dust motes. The atmosphere chokes her: a mixture of stale air, dust and the chemicals Thomas uses to kill and preserve his precious insects. She sneezes, then pushes the window up and takes great gulps of air. She disturbs a thrush outside, which carries a snail in its beak. When it sees she doesn’t intend any harm, it goes back to its task of hitting the snail against a rock.

  The crates sit where the man left them, assembled in the corner of the room below a wall map of England — marked with flags where Thomas has found this or that rare butterfly — and beside his precious Brady drawers, in which he keeps his best specimens.

  They are nailed shut, but she soon finds a metal instrument to prise a lid open. The cracking, tearing sound of the wood and nails clashing startles her and she stops for a moment and listens, expecting to hear Thomas’s footsteps on the stairs above. But the only sound is the tapping of the tenacious thrush with its snail.

  She lifts the lid off carefully and sets it on the ground. Her hands come away blackened — this is one of the crates tarnished by the smoke from the ship’s fire. A powerful chemical odour hits her in the face and she leans away, the back of her hand to her mouth. She supposes the chemical is necessary to stop the specimens being attacked by fungus or parasites or whatever the danger is for them. Inside the crate more boxes are packed together, and when she opens these, still more, this time floating in cotton wool and sawdust, which is infused with the foul smell. When she picks some up and runs it through her fingers, she detects a base note of camphor. In the smaller boxes — some are cigar boxes, others biscuit tins — lie little parcels of paper with twisted corners. She lifts one carefully and unfolds it. Out slips what she first mistakes for a jewel — the most exquisite creature she has ever seen. It is a butterfly, with clear wings speckled with stardust. Two bright spots of the deepest pink appear to have been painted on this morning, they are so vivid. She can see the colour of her hand through the transparent wings. The inside of the envelope is inscribed in Thomas’s careful handwriting: Cithaerias aurorina, River Tapajós, Brazil. She turns the butterfly this way and that, catching its wings in the light.