Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “Based on what?”

  “All this neatness and communication could just be healthy activity to avoid depression. But Father, the whistling? Why do I get the feeling that you’re wearing the hair shirt to hide your financial solvency from Lord Revelstoke and the others?”

  “These English investors are far too conservative. Look at the Bank of England bailing out Barings. Don’t they realize what capitalism is? So we live cautiously for a few years. Nothing is certain, not our failure, nor our success, but I’ve hung on to the Argentine railroad stock. I’ve even increased it. And our friends in South America—”

  “Enough,” says Sarita. “This is why people hate Americans, you know that?” And he does. It’s making him laugh. “Have you told Mother?”

  “Told her what?”

  “That it isn’t the end of the world.”

  “No one’s been home for several days.” Which means that Mother’s taken residence with her pills and decoctions. “And when someone’s home? I’ll tell her something. But nothing is certain. We could very well be ruined.”

  “You are optimistic.”

  “I live in the future.” He shrugs. “Where’s your husband?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Out drinking?”

  “That’s what I’d be doing.”

  “How’s his scandal?”

  “Eclipsed by yours. Thank you.”

  “Scotch?”

  “Bourbon, if you have it.”

  He pours the glasses. She sips from hers and it warms her, but she knows she’ll only finish half. Her stomach is so squeezed against her lungs that she really can’t drink spirits anymore. Her father returns to whatever memo had been occupying him when she entered and she enjoys this. She can still sit in her father’s study although she is a married woman and very pregnant. They can still chat like this. The fire sends out a pop and there’s a pleasing show of sparks as the wood shifts. “You knew, didn’t you, when you agreed to let me marry Herbert? You knew that we’d be broke and that he would survive it, that he wasn’t accustomed to luxury, that he’d be ambivalent about marrying a rich woman anyway and would have too much pride to show me any disappointment in this fiscal decline.”

  “You married for love,” says her father, looking up.

  Sarita nods. One statement does not cancel out the other. “Reason makes love easier,” she says. “Where are we going to live once this place is sold?” She wouldn’t ask if she weren’t pregnant.

  “I think I’ll take Mother back to New York,” he says. “What is the state of your finances?”

  “You know figures better than I do,” says Sarita. “We have what Herbert made from the sale of Five Years With the Congo Cannibals. He was going to do a limited roster of speaking engagements because he wanted to be home for Christmas and because of the baby. But he could always do more.”

  “Do you want to keep Paz?”

  “Of course I’ll need a staff, but I’m not sure if Paz is a good fit, not if I’m scaling back. My hair is not a priority. I have to think about basic housekeeping and the baby.” And she’s seen how Paz throws her shoulders back when Herbert enters the room. In Buenos Aires, Paz’s aunt was the mistress of a minister and would show up (although at the back door) in a cloud of fancy perfume, her bosom plump and straining like a wind-filled sail and her hair piled high in a pouf worthy of Marie Antoinette. And this woman was an inspiration to Paz, who no doubt dreamed of ministers and dukes and princes. But in the absence of this dream, the reality—Herbert in his shirtsleeves smoking a pipe in the drawing room—seemed to be filling the void. Sarita’s hands pat her stomach, right where there was once a waistline. “Paz’s English has much improved over the last year. She’ll have no trouble finding a position. Maybe I’ll take Mrs. Ogilvie, unless you want her.” She’s the cook and a nice matronly sort of person, someone the parlor maids like. She manages the kitchen budget well. Perhaps she’d do as a housekeeper. “Who do you want, Father?”

  “I see no reason to get rid of Valentine,” says father.

  “He’s a curious subject for such loyalty.”

  “He hasn’t impregnated any parlor maids and that’s good business.”

  How hilarious. Things have been so rough as of late that Sarita’s forgotten how she loves to be hunting from one funny thing to the next. “So only Valentine?”

  “I don’t feel attached to most of the staff here. We just hired them. I won’t make any final decisions until the baby comes.”

  “Mother will want all the people with small hands,” says Sarita, and they laugh.

  Warrington, Lancashire, a depressing gray town packed into a wall of drab hills where a relentless drizzle pisses down on the muddy streets. Lucky for Ward, he’s done transporting his things. He’s staying that night in the upstairs room of the Black Hare, and the lecture is going to be in the tavern itself. The publican tells Ward that the majority of his audience will be miners and that he should be aware that these men do not wash up except on Christmas. Of course, the publican, a cheerful red-nosed, red-cheeked man who is screwing the glasses dry with a linen cloth, is not making fun of the miners but rather of Ward.

  “Sir,” says Ward, “I’m lecturing on the Congo.” He points to the poster: What I Saw in Savage Africa, Illustrated by Limelight Illustrations . . . ­“Savage Africa is not known for its bathing facilities. I am a tolerant man.”

  “Then you can tolerate this,” says the publican, and he pulls him a beer.

  “Will you have one yourself?” asks Ward.

  The man, judging him favorably, continues on with a short glass for himself. “Where would you like to set up the Magic Lantern?”

  Ward looks around. “We can project onto this wall. I’ll hang a sheet. The lantern will go at the end of the bar.”

  “How does it work?” asks the publican.

  “It’s very simple, actually.” Ward notices that the miners have begun to file in, hats in hand, as if they’re entering a church. “We have the two sacks ready—one of hydrogen, and one of oxygen. You feed the gas through these tubes. We light the flame and then inside there’s a little block of quicklime that heats up nice and hot and gets bright. That quicklime throws the light. But I am going to need help with the slides.”

  The publican looks over at the miners, blackened with coal, the whites of their eyes catching the dim light. “There’s Ben Field and his Jim is a bright lad. Jim’ll do it.” Jim, who doesn’t look more than thirteen years old, is as covered in coal dust as his father.

  “Jim, fancy learning something new?” says the publican, waving him over.

  Ward explains the order of the slides, how to switch them out. He gets Jim a lemonade while the boy’s washing his hands behind the bar.

  Ward goes to work. Images start up like memories on the draped sheet—Bakongo witch doctors, Bwende belles, the Belgians with their guns and mustaches and order. He tells his stories and leaps around, roaring like a lion, trumpeting like a bull elephant. The men shout and jeer, laugh, order more beers, and start lining them up along the bar for Ward. Jim, his eyes fired up with romance, beams a smile that burns as hotly as any little block of quicklime. Ward takes a second’s break to gulp at one of the glasses of beer and, in the space allotted by this action, a chorus of coughing starts up as these men struggle to clear the lungs so that they can hear what happens next—a volley of poisoned arrows, the tattooed beauties, the yellow leopard eyes flickering behind the trunks of trees.

  The show over, Ward tries to put a dent in the pints these men have bought for him, but he won’t be able to finish. So they’ll have to help. Ward tells story after story. And he asks for one of the miners to share a story with him. “When our stories get an ending, it usually isn’t a happy one,” a miner says. And they laugh, a low rumble that sends some into coughing, others into quiet introspection.

  Ward
works his way north, lecturing to ironworkers in Earlstown. He writes to Sarita, “I have buffeted the world a good deal, and have had some pretty rough times, but I think this lecture business in England is the dreariest experience of all my life.” He misses Sarita and explores this new feeling—a loneliness that he could solve if he were near this woman.

  Christmas Eve he’s in Ardrossan, Scotland—a dreary coastal town where pig iron and coal are loaded onto ships, sent to Europe and North America, with the locals waving it off in a spirit of dour, religious, Scottish joylessness. Ward had been hoping to be proven wrong about Ardrossan. He’s known some Scotts in his time, mostly in Australia and New Zealand—cheerful sheep people—and they were good for a drink and a laugh and a story. But here, at the Egglington Arms, he has been left to eat his steak in a room where the fire has died and a bare branch screeches against the pane as the wind circles the building, rattling casings, tearing at the roof, ruffling the hair on his forehead, as it squeezes through the cracks and makes a chill draft. Even his steak is bereft of companionship and occupies the center of the plate with neither sauce nor vegetable.

  He’s taken to writing Sarita every day. He has to be cheerful for her because he’s sure that being without him in a house that’s up for sale and a baby due in the next few weeks is cause for anxiety. He writes, “I am to lecture on Boxing Day in a church in the middle of a field where goats eat shoes and saucepans.” His effort to cheer Sarita cheers him. He stays up writing, first his next book—his account of the events of the Rear Guard—and then back to the letter for Sarita so that at midnight he can be the first to wish her a Merry Christmas. Although he hasn’t had a merry Christmas in years: One year, he and Casement got confused about what the date was and celebrated a day early and, after they figured it out, weren’t sure if they wanted to celebrate again. Ward thinks back to the Christmas of two years ago, the one he cele­brated in Yambuya with Jameson and Troup—that was their last Christmas.

  On New Year’s Day, Ward is in Belfast. He thinks of Casement as he walks along the narrow streets. A child stares at him until his older sister, also staring, smacks him on the head. The air is choked with smoke and there’s a sense of deprivation that he can almost hear, like a low humming. He cannot associate Casement—straight-spined, sunburned, articulate ­Roddie—with this place. Casement does not have the difficult accent and his open demeanor doesn’t seem to be a prevalent quality of the Irish of the North, or at least not the city folk. Quite a few people seem suspicious of Ward, although what he could possibly be up to—other than lecturing on Africa—who can say? The friendlier people have good humor and are full of questions. How big are elephants? Do the savages have many children? Does Ward have many children? How does he find Belfast? And some other questions that are probably very interesting, but that he can’t parse out.

  Did he really think that Ireland would be a nation of Casements—­idealistic, poetry-writing adventurers with low-purring voices and philosophical personalities? Still, Ward engages the older gent at the hotel and tells him that his friend is Irish, from Ballymena. A Northern Irishman too, although the more Ward tries to follow this chain of conversation, the more he realizes that he doesn’t understand the history of Ireland, nor even the present. He doesn’t know anything about Parnell beyond Kitty O’Shea, and he’d rather not talk about this. Having suffered slights in the papers, he sympathizes. He doesn’t want to be the man who only knows another by his scandal. Time to turn the conversation back to the Congo, to talk about cannibals and naked ladies and elephants, all safe and well-worn topics.

  While the year is still new, he takes the ferry back to Liverpool—another former home of Casement’s. Ward buys a ticket for the first available train to London, third class because that’s where there’s a seat for him. Then, from his third-class carriage, with his battered bundles and the borrowed brashness of having been with miners, and ironworkers, and ordinary people, he finds himself flagging down a growler. After—with his help—the coachman has loaded all of his things, Ward throws down his address.

  “Carleton Terrace?” the driver repeats with disbelief.

  “That’s right,” says Ward. “Number Six.” He shuts his eyes, his legs still at sea from the crossing, or maybe from the rattling of the train, or maybe from the hard wheels of the jolting carriage as it grinds across the harder stones of London and into the upper class.

  Sarita’s contractions start shortly after lunch on the thirtieth of January. Ward will be a father. He remembers once when Janey, his mother’s spaniel, had puppies and how excited he had been. He thinks that not only is he not quite as excited as he was then, but that he also shouldn’t be thinking about whelping puppies and his own child as the same thing. Maybe he is not ready for fatherhood, but—and this is a relief—it really doesn’t matter whether he’s ready or not. His part in the current situation was done with nine months ago. He thinks of the curse of labor. He thinks it is damned unfair. But still, a doctor must be summoned and Ward is jogging down to Sanford’s office to announce this when he notices his in-laws in the drawing room and he jogs backward to stand in the doorway.

  “Mother,” says Ward, as that’s what she has asked to be called, “Sanford,” as that’s what he has asked to be called, “the baby is on its way.”

  His father-in-law sits frozen, the paper in his hands flicked open to its widest expanse. Mrs. Sanford blinks, stilled too, with Mrs. Ogilvie by her elbow, a pencil and paper in hand, apparently taking direction for some meal or shopping errand in the future. “The baby,” says Sanford.

  “Sarita’s baby,” says Ward. “Someone should call for the doctor.”

  Sanford tucks his paper into a hasty square and stands, presumably to find someone to fetch the doctor. Mrs. Sanford has not moved, but Mrs. Ogilvie ducks her head efficiently by the woman’s ear and says, with complete conviction, “consommé.”

  “Shouldn’t someone be with Sarita?” says Mrs. Sanford. “Where is Paz?”

  Ward returns to Sarita’s room to see her doubled over the windowsill, her head resting on the glass. He goes quickly to her, to help her back into a chair. “Herbert,” she says, “don’t be an idiot. If I wanted to be sitting in a chair, I would be sitting in a chair.”

  Ward is alarmed, but Paz waves him off. “Don’t worry, Mister Ward,” she says in a calm drawl, “very normal. She will get crazy.” Paz mimics crazy with a sort of flapping, loose-claw hand gesture. “Is normal too.” Paz stays on the far side of the bed from Sarita and she seems to know what she’s doing. “The cold is nice for her head,” says Paz. “She stays like that, is good. The doctor makes her get in the bed, she get very mad.” Ward hears a growl and realizes that it’s coming from Sarita.

  “Where’s the doctor?” he says, panicking.

  “It’s a long time, Mister Ward,” says Paz. “Better for you with the others.”

  And just like that, he’s booted into the hallway.

  An hour later, a doctor arrives, although this is a young man—in his twenties—and his accent reveals him to be a Scot. He has black hair and an intense expression. He’s come upstairs with his coat on—used to being in a hurry—with Margaret, dodged at the door, in hot pursuit. “Where is Doctor Danvers?” asks Sanford.

  “He’s been up all night and more with a difficult birth, someone in the peerage, no name I can share.” The young doctor shrugs off his coat and tosses it to Margaret. “I am Doctor MacIntyre.”

  Ward and Sanford share a moment. “You look very young,” says Sanford. “Have you done this sort of thing before?”

  It is a silly question, but it’s the exact silly question that Ward wanted to ask.

  “This sort of thing, and this thing, and I had a good night’s sleep, which is more than Doctor Danvers.” Dr. MacIntyre gives Ward an appraising. “You’re the father?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Nice small head,” he says. “And you?” he
says, looking at Sanford.

  “I’m her father,” says Sanford.

  Sanford’s head is as big as an ice chest and sits almost directly on his shoulders, as if his neck has given up.

  “It’s going to be a while,” says the doctor. “Have a drink. Get some rest. When something’s happening, I’ll let you know.”

  And when something is happening, there is no need of letting anyone know. The whole house can hear it. Ward paces like all fathers do, a Punch parody of self. Ward thinks of lovely Garnet, the cascading red hair, her joy at meeting him, her breathy whisper, “You’re the luckiest man alive, but I bet you already know that.” He’d had to visit at her house since American women of that class didn’t go out when they were showing. She’d kicked off her slippers, put her narrow feet on Sarita’s lap, and asked that Sarita rub them as her feet were numb and cold, late pregnancy circulation problems. Garnet confided, winking at Ward, that Sarita was the only person she could tolerate touching her. Sarita had added that Wallace too belonged in that number. “Him?” said Garnet. “He’s the last person I want touching me. He’s never coming near me again.” Outrageous Garnet was positively the most alive girl Ward had ever met, other than Sarita. But now Garnet is dead and her baby did not survive, and—according to Sarita—that poor Wallace is drinking.

  In the hallway, he can hear Paz’s voice, soothing words that seem at odds with whatever response Sarita has—it’s all in Spanish though. And then the doctor asks for more hot water. The door swings open, and for two seconds, Ward sees the sheet that is covering Sarita knotted beneath the doctor’s chin, like a bib. The doctor’s tools—smooth, ivory-handled forceps and large spoons—are spread across a chair. Paz calls into the hallway for the water, and Margaret—who has been at attention for hours—rushes off. Sanford stops Paz and says something to her and Paz, tiring, responds with more casualness than she really ought to, although what she’s saying, Ward does not know. She opens the door again, and before it shuts once more upon the scene, he sees Paz unknot the sheet from behind the doctor’s head, and pull it—as if she is a magician doing a trick, exposing Sarita’s bare knees, reversing magic, showing how the rabbit really does get out of the hat. “The gentlemen want you to see,” she says to the doctor.