“You may turn your head, but in general please stay facing that … that tree.”
“I shall try.” But she could not resist one look to her left as he took his seat, the most monstrously endowed erect organ she’d ever had the terror to view nestled against his hip, unsuccessfully stuffed beneath the cincture of the cravat. She’d never seen any truth to the old story about men’s noses being a correlation … Instead of being afraid, perhaps it was the brandy that imbued her with a spreading warmth, and she felt even more kindly toward the sweet nobleman who had saved her from drowning.
“Count…,” she called gaily. “I mean, Tomaj. What attracted you to this island? What brought you here from New York?”
His voice came mellifluous and syrupy with the Russian accent beneath the coursing waves of rain down the sides of the glass-house. “Simple, really. After the victory at Orleans—well, after the Treaty of Ghent, I should say—there were a lot of men without work. A chit like you might recall that. What were naval men such as ourselves to do?”
“Ah, you were a naval man? In the American navy?”
His response was slow and remote as he concentrated on his sketching. “Yes, well, by the time of the victory at Orleans, I’d already retired my commission, yet I was compelled to fight by happenstance. I had a grand schooner at my disposal, so I gathered a likely crew of men such as Antoine Youx, whom you had the pleasure of meeting a fortnight ago, and is still with me to this day.”
Dagny wrinkled her nose. “And that beastly man who lurks under your stairwell and sings songs like some kind of warped outlaw?”
“Zaleski? No, I believe we picked him up in Barbados, after he’d just resigned his commission with the Royal Navy.” His tone waxed contemplative when he said, “He was so eager to join us, he demonstrated some of the most effective tactics. Many uses for marline spikes.”
“And that horrible walleyed little man? Surely there’s no use for a decrepit old thing like that in anyone’s navy. Oh!”
Dagny jumped a few inches on her stool when nearby some flowering pink young bushes of A. wallichii rustled angrily, spurred perhaps by a bird that had been caught inside the glass-house.
“Ah!” cried Tomaj, tossing a pencil into the bushes. “Just another chameleon! I enjoy those creatures, but they do seem to multiply inside this house, even though I lock the door tightly … No need to get up, Miss Ravenhurst!”
“But I adore the wide variety of endemic chameleons you are blessed with here … May I not study him?”
“No, no, no, sit back down! You may study him later, at your leisure. Right now, I need the waning light to sketch by. You asked about my assistant saucier, Slushy. Believe me, my malala, he may seem a heinously and frighteningly romantic character, but he’s quite harmless. No, he was never in anyone’s navy, but he has a very tragic background of suffering, a grand dramatic, almost Grecian saga of martyrdom in the brutal alleys of New York—”
“Oh, he’s from New York, too?”
“Yes, yes! And you really should be kind to him, because he is truly the victim of humanity at the hands of some ruffians who committed crimes that …” the count’s voice trailed off then, perhaps sketching the arch of her nose. “Well, crimes that are best left unsolved, really.” He cheered when he added, “And it’s in the best naval tradition to have a helpless martyr as your honorary chef.”
“I thought you said he was a bootblack boy?”
“Yes, well … there are hardly many lucrative opportunities on a tropical island for bootblacks now, are there? You asked how I found this island. We merely followed the trade winds that took us around Simon’s Town and the Cape of Storms. We had heard of this rich island, where the benevolent King Radama was a great advocate for education, and esteemed the instruction of his people in arts of civilization more than gold and silver. He was on one of his heroic marches to subdue the country when we arrived, but he left us alone.”
Something else came to Dagny’s mind. “Are you acquainted with the Chief Wife, Ramavo? I mean, on a personal basis?”
“Yes, I should think so.”
“Can you tell me, then … Is she fond of cloves?”
It sounded like he was laughing. “Cloves? I should think so.”
“In what way? I mean, does she, for example, flavor her tea with them?”
“Tea? More than that. She has a special oil made of Zanzibar cloves. When I first arrived here in 1818, there was one Frenchman lump who succumbed to fever after bringing over the first clove trees. I now have thirty thousand Zanzibari clove trees.”
“So … it is you who supplies her?”
“Yes, but … as a merchant only, malala.” He chuckled haughtily. “I hardly journey up into the highlands, press the oil, and anoint her body with it. No, I leave that to more … educated hands.”
Dagny’s head whipped to the left. “What do you mean by that?”
Tomaj paused with amusement, his hand holding the pencil in midair. “Oh, you know. She has special slaves, knowledgeable in that type of activity.”
He was lying! Snorting hotly, Dagny abandoned her stiff profile pose and spun to face him. “Do you refer, then, to her sparrow hawks?”
To please her, Tomaj agreed. “Yes, the sparrow hawks.” Her ignorance of the truly licentious nature of Ramavo bothered him. Rising, he took the brandy bottle over to her. “Have you not heard the tale of one of King Radama’s marriages in 1823? No?” He paid close attention to her face. “The king appeared on a high balcony in front of a crowd of two hundred thousand and gave a sign calling for silence. He said one word, and one word alone.”
“What?” the girl breathed.
“Lapabe.”
She shrugged.
“There was an instantaneous roar of joy, and two hundred thousand people who had assembled in and around Antananarivo commenced ‘mingling,’ the slaves with the free, common with noble. Why, General Brady himself had to watch as his screaming wife was carried off under his very eyes. Only the royal wives were not touched.”
Miss Ravenhurst drew back with horror. “‘Mingling’?”
Tomaj knew he was expert at raising one eyebrow. “Yes, mingling.” He poured more brandy into the glass she clutched. “The next day Radama promised lapabe would never happen again, but shortly after, forgot his promise on the birth of his sister’s son, and all was repeated.”
“And … where were you during all this? Did you witness this yourself?”
Looking wryly up to the ceiling, Tomaj nodded briefly. “Yes. I did.”
Pleased that he’d shocked her—oh, why was he so perverted he took pleasure in stirring things up with women?—Tomaj turned to regain his stool, but there was a fresh rush of wind inside the glass-house, and he pivoted to see the cabin boy Bellingham at the door, his massive greatcoat making him appear much smaller than his perhaps fifteen years, his etiolated hair standing up in spikes.
“Cap’n!” He saluted. “There’s a brother of Miss Ravenhurst in your reception room. Says he’s come to collect her!”
This tiding further filled Tomaj with joy, and he set down the brandy and headed toward the coat stand. “Good news, indeed, Miss Ravenhurst! Perhaps he’s grown tired of mining for celestine in this deluge!”
“Oh, please, call me Dagny, sir.” She was at his side, tying her hat under her chin and accepting the parasol from him. “I didn’t know he was following me … I came only with Izaro.”
“Well, it’s good fortune then.” Tomaj hustled her out the door. “I quite enjoy your brother. He’s a forthright bugger. We could use more like that around here.”
“A forthright bugger—I shall tell him you said that,” Dagny laughed as they dashed across the vast lawn like two children in a fairy tale, past the gardeners who were too accustomed to rain to let it deter them from their hedge clipping, pruning away like praying mantises under their wide straw hats.
Invigorated with the rain and the dash, they giggled nonsensically as they entered the reception room. Tom
aj laughed at a stiff Antoine Youx, who stood formally against a wall with hands behind his back, like a bewigged servant waiting for orders. But who was this? Instead of the angelic sight of the affable Salvatore, a tall, gangly boor posed in the reception room. His hair was an unruly mass of curls like an explosion of strained potatoes upon his head, his misshapen nose resembled an inedible gourd, and he wrung an absurd wide-brimmed Quaker hat, appearing about to break out with a sermon at any moment.
Still panting from his run, Tomaj’s mercurial spirit wasn’t in the mood for strangers. Waving an arm at the unattractive man, he demanded of Youx, “And who is this? Where is Salvatore Ravenhurst?”
“Oh, Zeke,” Dagny said almost with disgust as she handed her hat and parasol to a servant. “Why did you follow me? I told you I’m perfectly safe here at Barataria. You have no fear from the count. We were just having a perfectly amiable time in his beautiful glass-house. He was sketching me.”
Ezekiel shuffled over stridently, making an angry bow to Tomaj. Tomaj deigned to nod his head in return. “Ezekiel Zhukov at your service, Count.” Before Tomaj could open his mouth, the clown turned on Dagny and demanded, “Sketching! And what sort of beneficial activity is that, might I ask? What are we going to do with a loony sketch? Look, I’ve come to collect you, Dagny. There’s important business to attend at home.”
Smiling, Dagny took the fellow by the arm. “Oh, Zeke, Zeke.” She turned to Tomaj. “May I properly introduce my other brother? I’m so sorry for his behavior—I’m afraid he doesn’t get out in society much.”
About to draw pistols, the two men nodded tersely at each other. Dagny carried on, “Zeke, I was just discussing clove plantations with the count here. It quite crossed my mind that Tomaj might be the ideal person to approach with your factory idea.”
Having had enough of this fellow who was clearly soft in the upper works, Tomaj strode to the sideboard to see what Ellie had set out on offer today. “Factory?”
Dagny answered for her brother. “Yes, he has long had an idea to set up a factory in Tamatave, a sort of dry-goods store where he could act as a factor, perhaps distributing necessaries to the natives, and luxuries to the Europeans. He’s an excellent merchant, good with figures, and he does drive a rough bargain. If you’re in need of an intelligent man—”
With a tumbler of only the type of Kentucky whiskey Tomaj couldn’t abide, he marched back over to the buffoon and demanded in his face, “If he’s so intelligent, why can’t he speak for himself?”
To Tomaj’s pleasure, the dolt was clearly taken aback, his limbs instantly arranged in a combative stance. “Listen here, you Russian slime—”
Tomaj chortled. “And who’s the Russian slime, with a name like Zhukov?”
Dagny inserted herself between them. “Gentlemen.” She faced Tomaj, and he was not unmoved to feel her calming hands on his chest, to feel her warm breath against his throat. How could such a woman have a brother like this? “Tomaj. Please. If you were to assist Zeke, supply him with the goods he needs, a feat you’re clearly able to achieve with all of the power you hold on this coast, why … you must think of me, if nothing else.” Why did that jackfool have to be standing right there, breathing down his sister’s neck? “Surely it’s plain, if Zeke has lucrative employment, then I will be all the more free to pursue my scientific interests.”
She had such sooty lashes! Tomaj fairly felt the breeze they created when she fluttered them. “Interests, indeed,” he whispered. If that dolt were not there, he could easily lean down and kiss her. “Would you finish modeling for my portrait?”
She grinned coyly. “Of course, dear Tomaj! And seeing as how your estate is the most bountiful with lemurs, chameleons of all attitudes and sizes, and the rarest and most astonishing orchids I may ever hope to collect, I will be free to roam about—”
When Tomaj affectionately brushed her cheek with his fingers, she was torn brutally from him.
“Oh, that’s the biggest load of cow dung I’ve heard in my life!” Zeke poked Tomaj in the chest with his boorish forefinger. “Don’t you think, pal, for one pathetic moment that I’m not going to have my eyes on you at all times. I trust you about as far as I can throw my mother’s boudoir. I’ve seen thousands like you, coming on all slick and noble on the outside, on the inside riddled with lechery—”
Tomaj’s hand shot up. He grabbed the offending forefinger and gave it a wrench. Satisfied to hear it crack audibly, and to feel the bones crunch in his fist, Tomaj smiled as he turned his back and returned to the sideboard casually, utterly confident anything Zeke could do to him would be inconsequential. He cast a sideways, warm-hearted glance at Bellingham, impersonating a footman by the sideboard, doing his best to stifle a guffaw.
Tomaj turned back after gulping the entire glass of whiskey. Dagny comforted her injured brother. Tomaj hated him, though, so he strode back over and seethed, “No one on this coast other than me trades anything. Am I clear? Seeing as how I’m not currently in need of any half-witted scums of the mud of hell telling me what to do in my business, may I suggest you march your ragged ass out of my door, and return to your former occupation of plaiting bed mats from palm trees?”
Dagny struggled to restrain her brother, shoving him in the direction of the door while valiantly placing herself between the two men. To Tomaj she hissed, “Why do you have to be so mean?”
Not satisfied, Tomaj called out to the departing couple, “By the way, my good fellow. I have not the slightest interest in how far you are able to successfully fling your mother’s linens and shifts, although you seem inordinately interested in it.”
At that, Bellingham was able to contain it no more, and he erupted into a gale of mirthful laughter, doubled over holding onto the back of a chair. Youx also could not resist bursting forth into a round of hearty chuckles, trying to cover it up by going to the sideboard.
Further, at the precise moment Dagny shoved her brother through the crowd of servants that had gathered in the doorway, Slushy the Bootblack Boy made a belated appearance, clouds of pink flowers clinging to his meager hair, holding up Dagny’s lace collar and pelerine as though they were for sale.
Angrily, she whisked them from his hands, and turned to cry a Parthian shot at Tomaj. “I thought you were a good, kind man … How mistaken I can be!”
“Shut the doors,” Tomaj wearily commanded poor Bellingham, who could barely walk, he was laughing so hard.
“What did I miss?” Slushy inquired innocently.
“They were going to loggerheads!” Bellingham guffawed. “We best leave the battle-lantern out tonight!”
The two mariners stood side by side, emptily regarding Pocock’s nautical painting.
“Tomaj,” Youx said mildly.
“I know what you’re going to say.” Tomaj lifted a plate of oysters on the half shell he had hoped, in one of his saner moments, to offer to Dagny. “Have an oyster.”
“Tomaj. May I suggest… That it wouldn’t have ruined your trade completely to give that ox—odious as he is—a small sliver of your trade? What harm can come of it? Like the pretty lady mentioned … With that imbecile out of your way, she is free to roam this estate, and then he’s beholden to you. Unless …”
“Unless what?” Tomaj barked.
Youx shrugged his rangy shoulders. “Unless that is not what you desire. Then, of course, you just did exactly the right thing.” Youx picked up an oyster and slurped it into his livery mouth, his words sliding around the slimy thing. “If you want her to hate you.”
Smashing his empty tumbler against the nautical painting, Tomaj was further enraged when it didn’t break, merely bounced off the canvas and onto the carpet. Spinning to face Youx, he whipped a forefinger in his face much as the loathsome Ezekiel had just done to him, and bellowed, “I do want her to hate me, Youx! Don’t you understand? What has being kind and full of puppy love and flowery goodness ever achieved for anyone? Death, misery, despair, and yet more death, that’s what, and haven’t we seen enough
death in our time?”
Perhaps seeing Tomaj glancing at a fine Turkish yataghan displayed upon the wall, Youx backed off with hands held up. “Tomaj, Tomaj. Might I suggest that in this one instance you can perhaps relax, and trust in someone? She seems like an extremely fine woman to me. Bellingham—” he appealed for help, craning his head over Tomaj’s towering shoulder, “don’t you agree?”
“Oh aye, sir!” Bellingham chirped, sampling some whiskey himself. “She’s a devilish good piece. A hell of a goer!”
Tomaj shook his head. “No. No. Come with me. I’ll show you what your nauseating flowery so-called love gets people.”
As Youx had no choice, he followed Tomaj doggedly into the study. Lighting a lamp, Tomaj took it to one of the bookshelves that lined the walls, seeking past some childish horn-books he’d never given Bellingham and a hallowed edition of Horsburgh’s Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies.
Youx said softly, “Tomaj. You used to enjoy love. Hasn’t it been long enough that you’ve suffered? We’ve all suffered. I don’t say that my suffering is greater than yours. Yours is the greatest. But … Are you forevermore doomed to repeat it?”
Tomaj found the jar. “Yes, Antoine. Yes, I am doomed to repeat it.” He turned to his quartermaster and approached him. “Do you agree that I loved Yves, as much as it’s humanly possible to love another?”
Youx shaped his face into a smile, and appeared to reflect on happier days. “Aye!” His tone was hushed and reverent. “You loved Yves, why … more than Romeo loved Juliet! Your love for him surpasses the universe.”
Tomaj nodded morosely. “And you say I’m supposed to forget him?”
Youx frowned. “No, no, not ‘forget’ him, that would be unthinkable …”
“How am I supposed to forget him when pleasant dainty little reminders like this are constantly being shoved into my hands?”
Without looking at the jar, Youx accepted it, perhaps thinking it was a pressed flower, or a poem.
The Strangely Wonderful: Tale of Count Balásházy Page 8
