Sound of Butterflies, The

by King, Rachael

  Thomas nodded his quiet assent, the evening collapsing around him.

  Manaus, January 7th, 1904

  I am but a man. And man has historically been enslaved by his body — what could have brought me to presume I could be any different?

  I have now betrayed two people — my wife and my benefactor. Part of me tells myself I am mistaken, but I know I am not. What business does a woman, the wife of one of the wealthiest men in Manaus, have in dressing in costume and joining in on a street party? Does Santos know she engages in such nocturnal wanderings? His behaviour is not exactly appropriate, but men are much more likely to behave in such a manner, are they not? Perhaps I am being naïve. I know nothing of this city and its customs. Perhaps its inhabitants are as wild as each other. With her silent gesture she implored me to keep quiet, and she has no reason to fear that I will betray her wishes — it would mean betraying myself as well. I will hold my tongue and I pray that she will, too. This journal will now have to be kept safe from prying eyes.

  Sophie, will you ever forgive me?

  Seven

  Richmond, May 1904

  Sophie flinches at being addressed directly, as if Thomas is in the room pleading with her. So that’s it. It’s the last entry in that particular journal, and she feels its note of despair, but has no sympathy. On the page opposite — the last page of the journal — is a coloured painting of the yellow and black butterfly. It has been painted with such intricate detail that for a moment she forgets herself and admires his ability. She wonders if he has painted it from life. It is beautiful. Is this supposed to give her hope after what she has just read?

  The room is a dark grey now — it’s a wonder she’s been able to read at all. She examines the entry again in the gloom, trying to glean as much meaning from it as she can, to read it in as many different ways as she can. But only one possibility stands out to her at this moment. She’s not stupid; she knows men behave like this, but she could have sworn Thomas was different from other men.

  She stands and flings the journal against the far wall, where it clatters onto the nightstand, knocking over an unlit candle, and falls to the floor. Clutching her stomach, she paces the room before picking the book up again and looking at it. The spine has come detached from its body and flaps like a ribbon. She stares at it as if it will give her the answers to the questions she wants to scream at her husband. She throws it back into the bag in disgust and opens the window to breathe some fresh air. The eastern sky reflects the sinking sun; clouds lie with bulging bellies on the horizon, promising rain. Everything is tinged with a lavender light; she even fancies she can smell it on the air. It’s a vista she has seen many times, but now the world has changed. Its corners are darker.

  What can she do? Her fingers reach for her hair and scratch at her scalp. The edges of a headache press her brow from the inside. There is no going back. She wanted to know, and now she knows.

  She stoops and gathers up the books that lie like leaves on the ground, shoves them back into the bag and slams it shut. Next, she edges open her husband’s door and slips the bag back inside, making no sound.

  Down in the scullery, the last light slants through the window and falls across the bench. She works quickly, cutting bread and ham and cheese. Too quickly: the knife slips and, as it slices through her fingertip, she feels the resistance before the pain. Her gasp in the silence is deafening. Blood drips off her finger and onto Thomas’s supper. She thinks about leaving it there for a moment as she presses a cloth to the wound, but throws the stained bread into the sink and cuts another slice.

  Thomas sits up when she enters his room with the tray of food. He stretches. He reminds her of a little boy, woken by his mother, but then she remembers what he is capable of and pushes this thought far from her mind.

  Without a word, she places the tray in front of him. He catches it as it teeters dangerously, and she turns and marches from the room, feeling his eyes pierce her back.

  Downstairs she pauses in front of the hallway mirror to fix her hair. Carefully she curls it over and pins it into place, trying not to dwell on what she is about to do. When she is satisfied, she takes her best hat and places it over the hairdo in the position to best flatter her face — tilted slightly forward, so her brow is covered and her eyes glint mysteriously from below. She takes a deep breath. Her dress is still marked with soot, but she doesn’t have the patience to go and change; instead, she selects a light coat to cover the damage — one she won’t be compelled to remove in the warmth of the evening. She lets herself out onto the quiet street, where the lamp-lighters have begun their evening’s work.

  Captain Fale is not expecting any visitors, so when the doorbell rings, he jumps a little in his chair. He must have fallen asleep — he is now sitting in the dark. He fumbles for his walking stick and pushes himself up. It’s probably a note from Sid Worthing, saying he can’t make their engagement tomorrow. But on a Sunday? It really is most tedious to have visitors on Mrs Brown’s day off.

  As the door swings open, he has a wild impulse to comb his hair, but it is too late. Sophie stands on his doorstep, looking up at him from under the low brim of a most fetching hat.

  ‘Mrs Edgar,’ he says. ‘This is a surprise.’

  He doesn’t say and a delight. She has sought him out! Is that desire in her eyes? He barely dares to hope that his plan is working — that she has come to him. Perhaps his hint that her husband has lost his faith hit its mark. He wants to open the door wide, to pull her inside. His hands itch to embrace her. He has a flash in his mind of her sinking into his arms with a sigh, the feel of the weight of her. But something is wrong. She has forgotten to put on her gloves and a piece of white cloth is tied around one finger, with blood seeping through it like a cluster of jewels on a ring. The sight of her bare hands makes him blush — it feels conspicuously intimate. She shifts from one foot to the other, and her eyes dart about. She keeps glancing over her shoulder at the street.

  ‘Samuel,’ she says. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘I …’ What is he thinking? Already some people have passed in the street and given them curious looks — people he recognises from church. He can hear their thoughts now: what is a beautiful young married woman doing calling on a withered old single gentleman like this? As night is falling? He cannot act on his urge to pull her in after all. He shifts his weight and a stab of pain in his leg makes him flinch.

  ‘Mrs Edgar …’ he begins again. She called him Samuel again. And now here she is on his doorstep waiting to be let in. ‘Mrs Edgar, I don’t think …’

  She rubs at her hands, pulling on them and flicking them as if they were dripping with water. She steps up onto the threshold and he falls back a pace in surprise.

  ‘Please, Samuel.’ She stands so close to him he can smell her; the scent of rosewater fills his nostrils and his head. He wants nothing more than to have her come in — in her state, who knows where things might lead? But he stands his ground and when she bumps against him does not relinquish his stance. She is clearly upset about something. Her face is tear-stained and slightly grubby, as if she has been standing in front of a smoky fire. She stares resolutely into his eyes and for a moment the struggle of power between them arouses him again. They stand for a few seconds, their faces expressionless — he is anxious not to give away any of his feelings, and she is determined to override him, it seems. But she relents with a sigh and steps down again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘You’re right. This is most improper.’ Her voice is a notch above a murmur, as if she is talking to herself but hoping she might be overheard.

  ‘I can call on you tomorrow, if you wish,’ he says, but she waves a hand at him. ‘No, Captain Fale. That won’t be necessary.’ Without a farewell, she turns in a daze — a product of cold anger, perhaps — and floats away from him out onto the street.

  He closes the door and leans against it. The wood is cool on the back of his head. His hands shake and he raises one to wrap around his throat.
He is disarmed, to be sure — he should be overjoyed at her intentions but after the initial shock and joy of seeing her at his door he is left merely confused. Has he done the right thing by not letting her in? Yes, he has, he is sure of it. It would not do for her reputation to be ruined at this point. Not when he is so close.

  The rain comes down all night, thudding on roofs and slapping windows with drops like fat tadpoles. By morning, nobody can leave their house without umbrellas turning inside out, coats whipping against legs and water reaching warm crevices and dry petticoats. Agatha watches the empty street from her sitting-room window while her sister Catherine plays the piano, fingers pounding the keys in time to the thumps of rain, and her brother Edwin plays with his new kitten. He is so gentle with it — too gentle for a boy his age — and holds it awkwardly, as if it is made of sand and might run through his fingers.

  Catherine has come far in her playing. She is only fifteen and already she has surpassed Agatha’s own skills at the instrument. Agatha doesn’t have the patience to learn the scales, and suffered many a swollen knuckle from her teacher when she was young, until her father found out and sent Mrs Rogers crying out the door. No daughter of his was going to be smacked like a common animal, he said, and gathered her to him while she slipped her arms around his enormous girth and smirked into his vest. But Catherine can sit at the piano for hours, running up and down the scales until somebody comes to ask her to stop. It’s as if she’s in a trance and has sent herself far away; the scales are the sound of waves on the beach reaching and receding in an endless cycle. She inherited the gift from their grandmother, who could play any instrument she touched.

  Agatha huffs and steps over Edwin, who now lies on his back with the kitten on his stomach. She can’t resist and reaches down to tickle his ribs, giving him a sharp jab and making him scream like a little girl.

  ‘Mummy!’ he calls, and she straightens in disgust.

  ‘Mummy can’t hear you, Edwina.’ She prods him with her foot and the kitten falls off his stomach, mewling. Then she crouches down again and sweeps her brother up in a quick embrace until he wriggles like a small animal. She drops a kiss on the top of his dark curls and slouches out of the room and up the stairs, heartily bored.

  Her ouija board is hidden under her bed, away from prying little eyes and fingers. Her grandmother gave it to her just before she died, when Agatha was fifteen. Nona had held on for a long time, and it was as if she were waiting for Agatha to fully develop hips and breasts before she let herself go, satisfied that she had been guided into womanhood and her gifts were fully realised. She always said that while a girl went through puberty she was susceptible to the spirits, and certainly Agatha became interested in spiritualism, but the interest waned as she approached womanhood. This old thing — she has got it out a few times with friends, but puts it away again when she sees that it doesn’t spring to life as easily as it once did.

  It is thoughts of Thomas that led her upstairs. She is tempted to take the ouija board over to Sophie’s and try it out again. What if he has been taken by spirits? If some part of him has gone over to the other side and not come back? The younger Agatha would have believed it unquestioningly, but somehow the adult Agatha stands in the way. She sits down on the bed and runs her fingers over the cool wood of the board. Nona would have known what to do. She would have taken no nonsense; she’d have got Thomas speaking again.

  Nona was a Romany who ran away from life on the road and married an Englishman. She didn’t fit the stereotype of the gypsy — she didn’t wear scarves and gold earrings — but she had skin the colour of strong tea and an accent that could cut glass. And she held on to many beliefs and gifts. The music she passed on to Catherine — Katerina, Nona would call her — and to Agatha she passed the gift of spiritualism. She also taught her never to give in to convention, and of all her advice (which to Agatha had included a lot of superstitious nonsense) this was the piece that Agatha took to heart. It coloured her life every day and gave her the strength of her convictions.

  ‘Never care about what others think of you, child. You have only to answer to yourself and to God. Only those two. And God will love you no matter what you do.’

  It was Nona who taught Agatha about the animal spirits that inhabit people. Agatha was stung on the ear when she was a child, and her hearing never fully recovered. Every now and then a buzzing starts up in her head. Nona told her that the bee left a part of itself inside her and when it died, its spirit stayed with her to guide her.

  Perhaps she will suggest to Sophie that they use the ouija board. Sophie will no doubt refuse. She seems to think there is something unchristian about communing with spirits.

  Agatha tried automatic writing once, and quickly tapped into two spirits who seemed to linger around her. They never had anything interesting to say, though, and they became like two bickering aunts. One of them would pop in and disagree with the other’s advice about removing tea stains and Agatha began to wonder, when she picked up the pen and emptied her mind, if it wasn’t the product of her own imagination, too unadventurous to come up with any ghosts who had died horrible deaths or who might have the answer to all of life’s problems.

  She scoops up the ouija board and readies herself against the rain.

  Sophie sits in the darkened parlour with a cool flannel at her forehead. She hardly slept last night, and her stomach is hollow. The thought of eating makes her feel sick, as if food will turn to glass once she has swallowed it and embed itself inside her. She hasn’t been able to face Thomas at all since taking him his supper last night. Part of her doesn’t trust herself — fears that she might fly at him and scream and slap him, hard. Now her head aches with keeping it all in and her body feels pinned to the chair.

  Her husband has been unfaithful to her. Dear, sweet Thomas, who had never so much as touched a woman before he met her. The first time he kissed her he was trembling, and as he pulled her close she felt his heart through both of their clothes, unnaturally fast. His peppermint lips had been furtive, as if they might break her if he leaned in too near.

  She has always been good at pushing aside bad thoughts — considers it to be a skill, in fact. She could choose to ignore this setback, never mention it to Thomas, never even mention it to herself. It may go away, and once Thomas is better, they can all go back to normal.

  Sophie gropes beside her for the glass of brandy she poured herself on impulse before she sat down. It stings her throat and she coughs. It forges a hot channel down through her chest to her stomach, warming her.

  Should she leave him? Is this what one does when one discovers an affair? How ill-equipped she is to deal with this! She knows of women who tolerate their husbands’ affairs as long as they are not flaunted, but those men are successful businessmen, going up to London at every opportunity for this dinner or that business meeting; she even knows of some who have been invited to parties by the King himself and not returned home for days. But these men are not Thomas.

  And yet those women are not unhappy. Not outwardly, anyway, despite probable adultery. Has she been naïve? Has it always been beating at her world, too, and now she has just released it, like a hoard of moths? Is she holding on to some distant Victorian morality, despite a new King and, some say, a new age?

  She hears the doorbell ring, but it is a distant rumble that seems to belong to another time and place. The house has been in a thick fog, with only the muffled patter of rain from outside, and with the flannel on her forehead, Sophie has become lost in it. She hopes whoever it is will go away.

  ‘Miss Dunne, ma’am,’ says Mary, and in strides Agatha, soaked to the skin. She is hatless for a change and her hair hangs like sodden weeds around her face. She is puffing, as if she has been running, and her cheeks are a healthy shade of pink. Water runs off her skirts and onto the carpet.

  Sophie pulls the flannel from her face. ‘Good Lord, Aggie, what have you been doing?’

  Agatha looks down at herself and laughs. Despite her head
ache, and her need for silence, Sophie welcomes the sound as if it were music.

  ‘I was going crazy at home,’ says Agatha. ‘I needed to get out. Cat and Edwin were driving me batty. What are you doing?’

  Sophie tucks the flannel beside her. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ says Agatha, removing her gloves. She has something tucked under her arm. ‘It’s not the weather for it.’ She drops into a chair and sighs, placing her ouija board in her lap.

  ‘Agatha!’ Sophie ignores the instrument; it’s Agatha’s favourite toy, but if she doesn’t mention it, maybe her friend will forget it’s there. ‘You’re soaking wet! Let’s get you upstairs and changed out of those wet things. Then we’ll get Mary to light the fire.’

  ‘But it’s too warm for a fire, Bear.’

  ‘I won’t hear another word. Come on.’

  Sophie is glad to leave behind the dark room, which suddenly seems too small for the two of them, as if their limbs stretch into every corner. Memories of evenings laughing in front of the fire with Thomas are starting to evaporate now, and all she can see is sagging furniture and curtains the colour of bruises. Even the roses on the mantel look as if they have been dipped in blood and left to dry. She will go mad if she has to spend the rest of her days in this house. She is glad, too, for something to do — a job to keep her busy, tending to Agatha and making sure she doesn’t catch a cold and ruin the furniture all at once.

  Upstairs, Sophie helps Agatha remove her outer garments and gives her a robe to wear before going back downstairs to find Mary, who gives her a curious look when she is handed a bundle of dripping clothes.