Arm-in-arm, she and Kirsty promenaded down Lancaster Walk behind the two men in breeches and jackets, who feigned complete indifference. Kirsty imitated their upright stance and stern expressions so that Mabel had to stifle her giggles and look away until she had composed herself.
When they reached the park gates, the men turned around.
‘Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?’ said one to Mabel. He was extraordinarily handsome, with China blue eyes framed by long pale lashes.
Emboldened by the fresh air and sense of liberty Kirsty had bestowed on her, Mabel replied with a swift, ‘Yes, they have.’
Her mother was always telling her this, and he hadn’t asked if it was a man who’d said it.
The young man looked briefly taken aback, but what he did next, Mabel didn’t know. She and Kirsty did not hang around to find out. Laughing and shrieking, they hared through the iron gates and along Bayswater Road, running until they were so out of breath they had to stop.
They went to a cafe and Kirsty made Mabel giggle even more with her stories of her households’ eccentricities, including the visiting aunt who always left a coin somewhere in her bedroom – under the rug, on the bedside table, beside the water jug – to check both Kirsty’s honesty and the thoroughness of her cleaning.
Laughing, Mabel ate her bun and drank her tea and, once they’d finished, had to run like the wind to get back before the curfew. She flew up the stairs and into bed as if she were on wings. Nothing extraordinary had happened – but she’d made a friend. It was so long since she’d spoken to anyone who wasn’t either a work colleague or a member of her family that she had almost forgotten how good it could be.
As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she thought of Katharine. She knew her sister had been lonely over the years, especially after Laure and Charles had deserted her; she’d written to her of how much she missed Elsie and all the family, especially her only sister Mabel. And Mabel missed her too, desperately. Despite how young Mabel had been when Katharine left, she remembered her vividly, and if the mental image she had of her ever faded, she would study the one family photograph they had at Hawthorn Road, taken the day before Katharine and Anselmo’s departure for Brazil, and imagine the conversations they’d have if Katharine were there, the secrets and confidences they’d share. She wished her sister were here to tell of her exciting day.
That night, Mabel dreamt of the dancing water in the Round Pond, the handsome, pale-lashed man, and Kirsty’s laugh, and suddenly saw a future that was a whole lot brighter than she had envisioned for a long time. She would share what she could with Katharine, without giving away her father’s accident or the fact that she was working in service.
It was good to have positive news to put in a letter.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Norwood, 1901
Katharine was grateful for Thomas’ absence over the next few weeks. It meant that she didn’t have to make a decision on what she should do about him, how she should behave towards him. She kept thinking that she should ask him to leave, should send him away to find work on another estate. After all, she had always intended to take him on for a trial period only. But the very thought made her feel utterly miserable. The heat, always oppressive, was exceptionally suffocating and depressed her mood still further.
She coped by keeping busy and renewing her efforts to restore Fortunata to health, tempting her with tasty food, saving for her the best bits of the fish the Indians caught, or the wild pig and tapir they hunted. But the child ate almost nothing, periodically supplementing her meagre diet with more chunks of dirt.
Fortunata insisted on doing the laundry and Katharine hated seeing her struggle with bundles of cloth heavy with the weight of water, but she refused all offers of help or exhortations to have a rest. Once she started, she would not take a break until the job was done. Ironically, despite her lack of interest in eating, she loved to help Rosabel with the cooking and was developing a range of skills in preparing the different meals they all enjoyed.
In this way, the days ticked by under the equatorial sun, the rain fell, the puddles evaporated and the river rushed past as it always did.
One day, just as Katharine was starting to long for and to dread in equal measure the return of Thomas and Antonio, she heard a commotion coming from the jungle. Calling Jonathan to come with her, and to bring a gun in case the visitors were unwelcome, she headed towards the source of the noise. A man stumbled out from between the mighty tree trunks, his bow and arrows slung untidily over his shoulder, his body smeared with mud and a wild expression in his eyes.
It was Fabio, one the Indian trackers who had gone with the expedition.
‘Mother,’ he called, his voice faint and weak, ‘come quick, very quick. Bring men.’
Katharine and Jonathan exchanged looks of alarm, and then she turned back to Fabio. ‘What’s the matter, Fabio? How many men and why do you need them?’
Fabio gesticulated wildly towards the forest, ‘Mr Thomas and the boy – they sick. Very, very sick.’
Katharine’s heart stopped beating for a moment and sweat broke out on her forehead.
‘Fabio, come with me and show me where they are. Jonathan, gather some more of the men together to help. Follow our trail – as quickly as you can.’
Dreadful fears crowded Katharine’s mind; an attack by a jaguar or snake, or fever – yellow, dengue, blackwater – all could kill and often did. And then there were bites, infected wounds, dysentery, or any number of other unnamed and unidentified jungle diseases that could take a life, even those as strong and vibrant as Thomas’ or Antonio’s.
Following Fabio through the dense undergrowth was exhausting and difficult. The day was drawing to a close but no cooler for it and though Fabio vociferously slashed away at creepers and lianas to clear a path, leaves and branches still flashed into her face and her arms became grazed and torn from pushing her way through. Eventually, her lungs heaving and her heart racing, sweat pouring down her back, they arrived at a small clearing on a low cliff, below which a waterfall thundered, sending spray flying high in the air where it caught the light of the morose, dying sun.
There, lying on makeshift mats of layered palm leaves, lay Thomas and Antonio. Both were semi-conscious, perspiration slick on their brows, their feverish eyes half closed, mouths murmuring with almost-silent pain or incantations.
‘Oh my God,’ gasped Katharine, ‘oh God, oh God.’ She rushed towards her son and flung herself down beside him, placing her hand on his forehead and covering his cheeks with kisses. His skin was burning up, his breathing laboured and slow and a trickle of dried vomit stained his chin.
‘Bring him water, Fabio,’ she called. ‘He needs water.’
Tears were streaming down her face and she wished she could use them to staunch the boy’s thirst.
‘Water gone, Mother,’ pleaded Fabio, showing her an empty gourd attached to the loin cloth around his waist.
‘Well get some more,’ she yelled. ‘There’s a whole bloody river down there, isn’t there! There’ll be a fresh spring somewhere.’
Fabio jumped back in amazement and then, without a second glance, headed to the low cliff to make his way down to the river.
Katharine’s head fell into her hands and rubbed her eyes in distress. She should not have shouted like that, she hated to let herself go. And to take her fear out on Fabio, who had done everything he could to help, was completely unfair. Plus, what she had sent him to do was dangerous; he could slip and fall, dashing his head on the rocks below, or be swept over the waterfall and drown. All she’d done with her idiocy and impatience was make a terrible situation worse. But he had disappeared already, and it was too late to call him back.
Trembling with self-loathing and terror, she crawled towards Thomas. In contrast to Antonio, his skin was clammy and cold and he was shivering, teeth chattering, intermittently letting out piteous moans.
Oh God, she thought again. Oh God, oh God, oh God. They can’t die, she
kept repeating to herself inside her head, they cannot die.
It seemed an age before Fabio returned safely with the water, at the same time that Jonathan appeared with a troupe of other men. Immediately assessing the situation, Jonathan set about cutting down long, thin stems of a stiff plant that grew in abundance, then slicing lianas to make a webbing base for his makeshift stretchers. Helpless and useless, she watched him work, admiring even in her atrophied state his skill and brilliance at improvisation.
‘Mother,’ he said, once the stretchers were complete, ‘we can take them home now. I’ve sent two men to collect the bark of the fever tree to combat the shaking.’
‘Right,’ replied Katharine, still befuddled and uncertain. ‘That’s… that’s good, Jonathan, thank you.’
The men lugged Antonio and Thomas back to the compound. Katharine, stumbling beside them, was besieged by memories of Anselmo’s body lying beside the river at Lagona. She wept for her son and for Thomas, her… But what was Thomas? Her manager? Her best friend? Her lover? Or all three of those things? Katharine did not know exactly what Thomas was, and could hardly bear to contemplate that she never might.
Her last action had been to reject him; she had not told him how much she loved him.
The Indians brought the cinchona bark powder, a remedy for malaria that the people of South America had used for centuries. For that is what they were sure Thomas and Antonio were suffering from. Katharine sent for the Spanish pharmacist and, while she waited for him to arrive, tried to persuade herself that malaria was better than yellow fever, the disease that she had seen so many die of over her years in the Amazon. You could survive yellow fever – but most didn’t.
Senhor Garcia, when he arrived a day later, confirmed both the diagnosis and the treatment, and had little more to offer.
‘Plenty of fluids, rest, soup or a light diet when they are able, and they will probably do well,’ he advised.
‘Probably?’ probed Katharine, wanting to know and not wanting to know what percentage likelihood ‘probably’ related to.
‘More than likely,’ said Senhor Garcia, with what Katharine felt was a misplaced cheerfulness. ‘And your men are doing a great job, Mrs Ferrandis, so I really wouldn’t worry too much.’
And with that he was off, back to his canoe, with a jaunty wave and a tipping of his hat. ‘Let me know how they do,’ he called, as he embarked.
‘I will,’ she answered faintly.
She kept vigil over them night and day, barely noticing anything else that was going on around the compound, leaving Jonathan and Santiago to run the business. Rosabel and Fortunata brought her water and tea and meals they’d tried to make extra tasty, but Katharine could hardly eat. She sat with her hand in Antonio’s, flickering her eyes from him to Thomas and back again, checking for any signs of improvement – or worsening – of their condition. Time lost all meaning and, although she was aware of the passing of the days and nights, she lost count of how many.
In all those silent, mind-warping hours, she went over and over her and Anselmo’s decision to come to the Amazon, the reasons why they had done it – for adventure, for riches, for excitement, to achieve something. All seemed selfish, futile and empty now. She had borne the death of her husband because she’d had to; there had been no other choice, no other possibility. Giving up, giving in, was even more impossible once she’d found out about the loan from her father – and that she was pregnant.
The need to pay her father back, to provide for her son, to honour Anselmo’s memory, had driven her on through all the years of hardship. But for what? Yes, she had made some money, and would make more – much more, probably. But meanwhile her son might follow his father to an Amazonian death. And the life of the man she loved was also ebbing away in front of her eyes.
Nothing seemed worth it any more.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
London, 1901
The optimism engendered by meeting Kirsty didn’t stay with Mabel for long. The days returned to their dull and mundane turning, and though her afternoons off were something to look forward to, they were also fraught with guilt. If Mabel went home to Clerkenwell she felt guilty about Kirsty; if she went out with Kirsty, she felt guilty about her mother. Christmas came and went, with her day off on the 26th, but with everything that had gone wrong that year, the celebrations at Hawthorn Road were a pale imitation of what they had been during Mabel’s childhood.
Nothing is simple, she sighed to herself as she scrubbed the front steps on the first day of the new year. She understood, with more clarity than ever before, why Katharine and Anselmo had taken the leap of faith required to travel thousands of miles to make their fortunes. She wished she would be lucky enough to meet a handsome, exotic foreigner who would whisk her away to some tropical future. But there was no way her parents would let her marry until she was eighteen, she was certain about that, so she’d just have to wait a while for her dreams to come true. Not to mention how she would ever meet a prospective husband, when she worked her fingers to the bone sixteen hours a day. And, talking of fingers, her hands were still a mess, but she counted herself lucky. At least she could function. Kirsty had told her that lots of girls’ hands got so bad that they had to give up work completely.
The best that could be said at that moment was that things were ticking over, and Mabel assumed this was what life was all about – a long process of getting used to your lot, with always at the back of your mind the hope that one day, you might end up with something better. At work, she obeyed all the rules and did exactly as she was told, in part for a quiet life and in part due to her fear of being dismissed. With Kirsty, she let her hair down a bit. But she never overstepped the mark – and she worked without cease on her ‘modesty’. By this time she was well versed in the practice of giving room to her employers and their guests, stepping back and turning away if they passed her in a corridor, never getting in their way.
So when one miserable, rainy afternoon she stood aside for the master as he walked towards her along the corridor, she knew she must have imagined his hand brushing against her skirts. Inwardly, she reprimanded herself for not flattening herself against the wall adequately. He would undoubtedly complain to the mistress, who would in turn instruct Cook to give her a dressing down. She spent the rest of the week on tenterhooks, waiting to be hauled over the coals, glad only that it was unlikely to happen again as it was fairly rare to come across one of the family around the house. When nothing happened – no telling off, no reminders of her ‘modesty’ – she almost forgot about the incident.
But suddenly the master seemed to be around a lot more than usual, not just in the house rather than out, but in Mabel’s vicinity. And on several occasions, their paths crossed in narrow passageways or on the back staircase. Whenever this happened, the same thing occurred: Mabel tried to shrink to nothing but however hard she breathed in, clamping her arms against her sides to take up the least space possible, she still couldn’t make herself small enough to allow the master to pass without touching her, his hand glancing off her bottom, his fingers trailing across hers.
She had no idea what was going on – but it made her increasingly uneasy. Her nervous anxiety reached a height when Cook called her into the kitchen and told her she had something serious to discuss with her. Immediately, Mabel’s heart began thumping wildly in her chest and her palms became damp with sweat. The moment she had been dreading had come. She tried to convince herself it was just about the plate she’d broken last week. That would mean money deducted from her pay packet to replace the item but this seemed infinitely preferable to being challenged about her inability to keep out of the master’s way.
But when Cook spoke, the problem didn’t seem to be the master at all, but Mabel’s conduct on her afternoons off.
‘There is a rule, Mabel, which I’m sure you are aware of,’ Cook intoned, sounding as if she were giving a sermon.
Mabel stood meekly, trying to keep her face expressionless in case she was a
ccused of being cheeky or pert. There were lots of rules, a plethora of them and she didn’t need to ask what this particular rule was; for certain, Cook was going to tell her.
‘You know that there is a rule which says there must be no followers.’
Mabel nodded mutely. She wasn’t allowed a man friend; servants never were. Well, that was all right because she didn’t have one.
‘The mistress is worried that you… that you are not taking the care of your reputation that you should be.’
Mabel was stumped. She didn’t know what Cook was referring to. All she and Kirsty had done was have a few cheeky exchanges with young men in the park. The conversations had never lasted longer than a few minutes and never led to anything else.
‘I don’t have a follower,’ she answered, trying to sound as innocent as possible. It was only the truth so she didn’t know why she was feeling so caught out, why her heart was pumping so hard.
‘Hmm.’ Cook pursed her lips. ‘So, make sure it stays that way.’
Mabel wasn’t sure whether she was more indignant or furious. There was clearly no evidence behind this discussion, no real problem. It was just to intimidate her, to put her in her place.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Mabel said, with more boldness than she felt.
Cook sighed elaborately. ‘Don’t answer back,’ she retorted.
They stood staring at each other for a moment before Mabel conceded defeat and dropped her gaze. There was no point in standing up for herself. They’d think what they thought whatever she did.
‘Listen,’ continued Cook, her tone suddenly more conciliatory. ‘Just be careful. You’re a looker; you must know it. All the men will be after you. Don’t think that posh people, the m—’ she faltered, corrected herself, carried on. ‘The mistress’ friends are no more immune to female charms than anyone else, even those of someone so much beneath them in the social hierarchy.’
Mabel’s confusion was written all over her face. What on earth was Cook referring to? Perhaps it did have something to do with the master’s bizarre actions, after all. She wanted to ask Kirsty, but at the same time knew she wouldn’t. This was too perplexing and embarrassing to mention to anyone. Cook, seeing her expression, clearly felt it necessary to elaborate.
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