Thomas remembered the sharp-toothed woman at the club, the rustle of her skirts. He took an involuntary step back. Lillie chuckled.
‘You won’t catch it from me, I’m sure of it.’ She exhaled smoke slowly. A patch of it drifted upward from her mouth and wound about her face. She waved it away. ‘I would leave this place, but what is there for me back in Paris? Here I am treated like a queen. There I was merely a courtesan. Oh, I’m making you uncomfortable.’
Thomas was indeed uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to having a woman speak so frankly to him of such things; but then again, nothing in his life was as it once was.
‘Will you see Dr Harris again soon?’
‘Soon I think, yes.’
‘Would you pass on my regards? Tell him …’ She blushed. ‘Tell him he is very lucky to have Senhor Santos as a friend. And that I will see him very soon.’
Thomas clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Why do you say that?’ What did she know?
Lillie laughed. ‘Dr Harris is in love with me, Monsieur Edgar. Surely you knew that.’
He had known about Ernie’s feelings for her, but he had turned away from the thought, for surely this woman, and those like her, had nothing to do with love. He wasn’t even sure that Ernie was capable of such emotion, something so sublime. The doctor inhabited his body so fully, abusing it, taking pleasure in it — not even caring if anyone saw him do it. Love was what Thomas felt for Sophie, not what a man like that could feel for a woman like this. He gave a shudder. For he had admired Ernie so much when they first arrived in Brazil, and perhaps he had let himself be influenced a little too much.
‘Monsieur? Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I … I hadn’t even thought about it. But what does it have to do with Mr Santos?’
She tilted her head and looked up at him through her eyelashes. Her eyes were nearly obscured by the brim of her elaborate hat. ‘If it weren’t for Senhor Santos, your friend would never be able to afford me.’
She tossed her cigarette, half smoked, into the gutter and put her glove back on.
‘So nice to see you,’ she said. ‘Au revoir.’
Thomas managed to get back to the house before the rain started again. He went straight to his room and lay down; not only did he still tire easily, but the heat saturated his body today, and he needed to lie down to absorb what he had learned.
He watched the fan turn sluggishly overhead. Images of the mutilation walked before his eyes; he remembered the scars he had seen on a couple of workers at the camp up the River Negro. He had wondered about them — hoped that they were merely tribal, but now he knew the truth. He had seen backs thatched with healed welts — how many more had not healed, and had been infected with gangrene or worse?
And Santos. The man had shown his cruel streak to Thomas, but no harm had been caused. With all the violence happening upriver, how could he make the connection between his benefactor, who had so far been incredibly generous to Thomas and his colleagues, and atrocities he could only imagine?
He should speak out about it, confront Santos. Surely Thomas’s British citizenship would protect him. But what if it didn’t?
I’m a coward, he thought.
A soft knock at the door brought him out of his reverie. Antonio entered, carrying a tray of tea, which was surprising — he never waited on anyone like this; he usually gave the orders to others.
‘I trust you had a good morning?’ Antonio set the tea things on the desk.
‘Yes,’ said Thomas, alert.
‘And what did you do?’
‘Do? Oh, I just wandered about a bit, looked at the opera house, things like that.’
‘Magnificent, isn’t it, sir?’ Antonio finished pouring the tea and handed it to Thomas. ‘Did you manage to find anyone to talk to?’
‘Only a young lady. A friend of Dr Harris’s.’
‘Oh yes. I thought that was you I saw. In front of the hotel.’
The tea burned Thomas’s lips as he took a sip. So that was it. Antonio had been following him. His eyes flicked to Antonio’s and for a moment the two men just looked at each other.
‘Yes, possibly,’ Thomas said at last. He handed Antonio the teacup, surprised at how steady his hand was. ‘Might I have a touch more milk?’
‘You know,’ said Antonio as he handed it back, ‘you should be careful who you talk to.’
‘Oh?’ Thomas kept his gaze straight ahead and tried to appear as if he was concentrating on his tea. He wasn’t going to push the man. If Antonio knew he had talked to Rodrigues, Thomas wasn’t going to let on that he knew he knew.
‘I only mean …’ Antonio chuckled. ‘Those women. They will take all your money if you let them.’
‘I think I am quite safe, thank you, Antonio. Thank you for the tea.’
Antonio bowed his head in a slow nod. His eyes were hard. Thomas noticed for the first time how black they were, like tar, with no definition between the pupil and the iris. The man’s tongue flicked out like a knife and licked his lips. ‘Dinner will be served at four, sir.’
The next day, Thomas knew what he had to do. He wrote a letter to the American Rodrigues had described, Mr Roberts. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, and spent long minutes gazing out at the garden where two black men squatted, pulling out weeds and wheeling them away in a barrow. Finally he put his confused thoughts into the most basic terms. I would like to speak with you and look at the possibility of helping you in your investigation.
He went downstairs to the dining room, where breakfast was laid out for him, but nobody was about. He pocketed a bread roll to eat along the way and set out.
It wasn’t hard to find his way back to the printing factory. The route was etched on his memory like the scratch of a pin, and when he was close, the stench of ash and soot wafted over him. He didn’t know how to get the letter to Roberts, but Rodrigues might know. Thomas had to be prepared for the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to help him; after all, Roberts could be back in prison by now, or dead.
The door to Rodrigues’s building stood open. Inside hung a smell that Thomas couldn’t place — sweet and sickly, tinged with metal and candle wax. His hand trailed on the banister as he walked up the stairs, and he felt grit beneath his palm. He stopped and pulled his hand away. It was black with the soot that had drifted over the road from the fire.
At the top of the stairs he tapped on the closed door. Nothing. He knocked louder. The sound seemed to rise sharply, then be absorbed just as abruptly by the walls. The door was unlocked, so he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Rodrigues lay face down on the floor in front of his desk, wearing the same silk-backed waistcoat as yesterday, with patterns that swirled like a watermark. Papers littered the floor around him and an ink pot was smashed at his feet. He had not fallen without a struggle.
‘Senhor Rodrigues?’
There was no movement, and with a sickening feeling, Thomas crept towards him. He walked through ink, and paper stuck to the soles of his boots. Part of him wanted to turn and run from the room, but he forced himself to carry on. He crouched down and reached out a hand to where Rodrigues’s fist lay curled like a flower. Cold. Thomas snatched his arm back, leaving a black smudge on the man’s thumb. He closed his eyes. He should leave now: the man was clearly dead, and there was nothing more he could do, but something — a sense of urgency? Decency? Morbid curiosity? — made him open his eyes and bend closer to the body.
Smudges of blood marked the papers beneath Rodrigues’s face. And something else, which at first looked like pale honey that had hardened and crystallised. Thomas recognised one of the smells he had detected earlier: wax. A sound erupted; it came from Thomas’s own mouth, a gasp of horror. The wax had dribbled down the side of the man’s head, from his ears. Thomas touched it and a flake came away under his fingernail.
Who could do this? Somebody had poured hot wax into Rodrigues’s ears, torturing him before shooting him with one clean bullet through the head. There
was something else about his face. Thomas spread his fingers over the man’s forehead and pulled. If he’d had any hair Thomas would have used that. The head was as heavy as an anchor and the face was inky and terrible. Blood caked the cheeks where it had oozed from the wounds around Rodrigues’s mouth, caused by the thick criss-crosses of twine that had been threaded through his skin in order to sew his mouth shut.
Thomas dropped the head with a thud and ran from the room, vomit cascading from his numb mouth and down his body.
Eleven
Richmond, June 1904
The news of Agatha and Robert Chapman’s indiscretion is all over town within days. Sophie overhears Nancy Sutton gossiping to Mrs Silver, and when Agatha comes to visit, she tries to think of a way to broach the subject. As if she doesn’t have enough to deal with, with Thomas. But she cares about Agatha. It won’t do to have her reputation ruined, to be snubbed by the whole community, not at this stage in her life. Perhaps it’s not too late and Sophie can talk some sense into her friend.
As they sit together in the garden, Agatha chatters on about her idea to start up a millinery, to make the most fantastical hats. Ladies will come all the way from London to buy them — she’ll be the talk of the town. She hasn’t once asked Sophie how Thomas is. Selfish girl. Selfish, irresponsible, stupid girl. She’s succeeded in being the talk of town all right, but not for her hats. Agatha keeps on, oblivious to Sophie’s silence and unfriendly thoughts, and Sophie has an urge to put out a hand and cover her mouth, to have nothing but the sound of the breeze in the plum tree and the blackbirds singing.
But Agatha stops speaking abruptly and stands. She closes her eyes and basks in the midday sun for a moment before going on.
‘You’ll never guess.’ She opens her eyes but doesn’t look at Sophie, who waits for her to continue. But Agatha has gone red and, with a confused smile on her face, stares at the ground.
‘Well?’ Sophie’s impatience is complete; she is getting ready to ask her friend to leave.
‘Robert’s proposed.’
Sophie’s hand goes to her chest. This she did not expect. ‘But Aggie, that’s wonderful!’ Everything will be all right after all. He will marry her, and she will be redeemed.
Agatha screws up her face and hunches her shoulders. She slouches back to the bench and sits down again. She inches over until the sun finds her face.
‘Or perhaps not so wonderful,’ says Sophie. ‘What’s wrong? Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Well, I do like him, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry the man.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘I just don’t like him that much.’
Sophie grabs Agatha’s arm with both hands, resisting the urge to shake. ‘But if you were to be engaged to him, it would make people more accepting of … your situation.’ Can’t she see? Why can’t she see?
‘Our affair, you mean? You don’t have to talk around the subject, Sophie, we’re both adults.’
Sophie looks down at her skirts and smoothes them over. Impetuous girl. She has to marry sometime; it might as well be Robert, if she likes him. She stands up. She doesn’t have time for this — she has troubles of her own, speaking of lies and secrets.
‘You disapprove of me, don’t you?’ says Agatha.
Sophie sighs. ‘Yes, I suppose I do sometimes.’
‘I knew it. At the theatre the other night you were angry with me about something.’
‘I don’t know. No. Yes, I suppose I was. Mr Chapman was laughing at us. And you were doing nothing to hide your feelings for him.’
‘Laughing at you? Not true.’ Agatha stamps her foot. ‘Sometimes you can be so …’
‘So … yes?’ Sophie looks down at her, casting a shadow over her face.
‘Self-absorbed. And oversensitive!’
‘I’m not self-absorbed! It’s you I’ve been worrying about! Everyone knows about the two of you now. You’re the gossip of Richmond. What were you thinking?’
‘Oh, blow what anyone else thinks!’ says Agatha. ‘If I were married to someone else nobody would think anything of my having an affair. It would be expected of me. But no. Everyone’s all …’ She raises her hands in mock horror, then begins fanning herself with an imaginary fan.
‘It’s all about discretion,’ says Sophie.
‘Lying, you mean? Keeping secrets? Like Thomas and his mistress?’
The loudness of her own voice surprises Sophie. ‘How dare you bring him up like that? How dare you even mention her?’
‘Why? So you can pretend it hasn’t happened?’
‘He is my husband. It is not your business.’
‘But you are my business. Look at you! You’re moping around. Get angry with him! Cry! Do something ! If you just push it aside and pretend it hasn’t happened you’ll end up like all those other women who are married and miserable and who spend their days looking out windows and wishing they could breathe. You’ll throw parties and never speak to each other again. And he certainly won’t get any better.’
‘How can you say these things? I’m trying! I’m … just … trying.’ The tears come then, and she collapses back on the seat. Agatha puts out a hand to her shoulder but Sophie pushes her away with a fierce ‘No!’ as if Agatha is the problem, the one who has torn her body in half. She feels Agatha’s gaze on her, her friend who will not give up on her, will not be pushed away. When Agatha reaches out again Sophie lets her, falling into her embrace and sobbing until her chest aches and liquid comes from her nose and her mouth as well as her eyes, all over Agatha’s dress and in her hair, but she knows Agatha of all people won’t mind.
She cries for herself this time, for Thomas’s unfaithfulness, for his not speaking, and for what it means for her. For the life that she had taken for granted and that has been taken away. They sit for several minutes until Sophie feels the heat inside her cooling and her breathing subsiding. Tears must be finite, she supposes. A body might explode from such violent crying if it went on for too much longer. And Agatha is right — she has been becoming catatonic, just like him. His illness has been threatening to suck her in as well, to paint her life a dull shade of grey, and she must not let it.
She pulls back from her friend’s shoulder and wipes her eyes. As she does she glances up at the house and sees a quick shape move away from Thomas’s window. Let him see, she thinks.
They sit in silence for another minute. Agatha squeezes her hand. Then she speaks.
‘My darling, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to say such hateful, hurtful things, but you were—’
‘It’s all right. I know. I was judging you when I should have been looking at myself. I’m sorry too. All that talk of discretion. It doesn’t matter what other people think.’ She thinks of her own behaviour, going to see Captain Fale that day, and cringes. She had not been discreet. But she had been upset, not herself. How easy it is to make excuses for one’s own behaviour.
‘I know it was hard for you taking Thomas out like that,’ says Agatha. ‘And that incident on the stairs —’
‘Oh. Don’t remind me.’ Sophie leans back onto the seat and covers her face.
‘But don’t you see that it’s a good thing, Bear? It’s good that he got so angry like that. Robert said afterwards he thought Thomas was going to punch that man in the face.’
‘And you think that’s a good thing? It’s worse now! The whole town thinks he’s mad. My father will find out, and then he’ll be here in a shot to get Thomas put in some hospital for the dangerously insane.’
‘Oh, tosh. Thomas would never hurt you or anyone.’
‘I know that. But other people don’t. They’ll think he can’t take care of me.’
‘You’ve got to stop worrying what others think of you. He can still work, so he can still take care of you.’
Sophie crosses her arms. ‘Still work? He can only work. He stays in that room all day. Sometimes he disappears to the park — I suppose I can be thankful that his strength is returning — but it’s like li
ving with a ghost. That is not taking care of me.’
But Agatha is right, as she so often is. Sophie must stop worrying about what others think. It is only distracting her from dealing with the real issues — Thomas’s illness, his infidelity, and whether she can forgive him enough to try to help him.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ says Agatha. ‘But I still think you did the right thing by taking him out. Will you do it again?’
‘I’m not sure I could bear it. It was hard enough in church, with all those pitying looks. But I do have another idea about somewhere to take him. I’m hoping it will help.’
‘Good! You see: it’s much better that you try to help him instead of leaving him to rot in bed. What will you do?’
‘I wrote to his friend at Kew, Mr Crawley. I just got the reply this morning. We’re going to meet him this afternoon.’
‘Good luck,’ says Agatha. ‘Now I have to go and see Robert and talk about this silly proposal. Are we still friends?’
Sophie smiles, defeated by her friend’s optimism. ‘Of course we are.’
Dear Mrs Edgar,
I was shocked to get your letter. Nobody has spoken to me of your husband’s condition. I did not even know he had returned so soon. I haven’t seen Mr Ridewell for some time, and I have not heard of any of Thomas’s companions returning either. By all means bring him to visit me. I would very much like to see him. We could take him to the Palm House, where he will feel at home — it is, as you know, the closest to a rainforest one can find in England. The experience may help him in some way, and perhaps we can find out what happened to him and get him talking again. I am very saddened by this news. Your husband is a bright and interesting young man, whom I have taken great pleasure in knowing. Please call on me today at two o’clock. Simply come to the front gate and I will meet you there.
Sound of Butterflies, The Page 29
