Along the Endless River

by Rose Alexander

  ‘The mistress says that you caught the eye of one of her acquaintances in the dining room the other day.’

  Mabel almost sighed with relief and then the words sank in. So not the master but another male visitor? She frowned. She had no recollection of such an event. There had been a guest – a portly, bald man with gold-rimmed spectacles – who had ogled her for the entire time she was in the room. But she had done nothing. So, she was getting into trouble, she was being blamed, for his actions. The injustice of it seared through Mabel’s very being. But she was helpless.

  ‘I was pretty once, when I was young.’ Cook seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be admonishing Mabel. She was looking into the distance, seeing something Mabel couldn’t. Mabel tried to imagine her with a figure, instead of the oblong brick she was now, to picture her with cheekbones and a chin rather than her present shapeless, jowly face. She couldn’t. But she sympathised. She understood that it would be terrible to look back with regret at what you once were.

  ‘I had to work hard to stay on the right side of the rules, I can tell you. Just remember that pregnancy is always the girls’ fault.’ Cook twisted her mouth into a sad half-smile. ‘Even though it’s the man’s.’

  They stood for a moment in silence.

  ‘I wish I could help you, Mabel,’ she sighed, looking down at the tabletop, pitted and rutted from years of use. ‘But I can’t.’

  Mabel’s forehead creased in puzzlement. Cook was being so cryptic, but she knew better than to quiz a servant so much higher in the ranking than herself. Then Cook came to and shouted at Mabel, ‘What are doing, lolling around there as if you’ve not got work to do? Get on with it.’

  Suddenly angry, Mabel marched off, head held high. There was a lot she didn’t understand. But Cook was right about one thing, which is that girls always got the blame. As for the mistress – she thought Mabel was a bad egg, did she? The unfairness of this seared through her veins and continued to do so over the next few days. She was in the housemaid’s closet where the brushes, dusters, brooms and mops were kept, bad-temperedly wrestling with the clutter, not entirely sure what she was looking for, when things took a terrible turn for the worse.

  Just as she’d bent over to reach for a cloth, she heard footsteps. The room was situated next to the narrow back staircase that the servants had to use, and only another servant would come anywhere near it. What did Cook want now she inwardly groaned. Not another scolding already, surely?

  But when the footsteps stopped; instead of Cook’s strident tones, sending her off on a task or berating her dilatory habits, there was nothing. Mabel became acutely aware of the smell of damp that infiltrated the closet, and of ash from the pail, of the hum of the silence that reverberated in her ears. Slowly, her heart in her mouth, she made to stand up straight.

  ‘Stay there.’

  Mabel’s heart almost jumped out of her chest. Her breath was coming in gasps and sweat prickled on her back and ran down the backs of her legs.

  It was the master.

  He crossed the threshold and shut the door, quietly, careful not to make a noise. She could not begin to imagine what he was doing there, what he wanted from her. But a servant never disobeyed her employer. Neither did a servant ever question their employer. So Mabel stayed where she was, her hands clenched tight, her palms dampening.

  Threat filled the air but Mabel did not know what that threat was.

  Until, all of a sudden, it was upon her.

  A heavy weight pressed against her as the master grabbed her from behind and pushed himself into her. Mabel froze. What was he doing? She couldn’t fight, couldn’t scream, was paralysed with fear. He grappled her to the ground, onto her knees, in between the metal buckets and mops and brooms, the shoe scraper that had somehow found its way here, the box of carbolic soap provided for the servants’ use. His fingers gripped her tighter, burning hot through her dress and bloomers and she felt something hard digging into her, insistent and unforgiving. The master’s breathing was heavy, snorting through his nose and hissing out of his mouth. For a crazy moment Mabel thought she was going to laugh. They were in the maid’s closet, both on their knees, as if playing some childish game, hide and seek or forfeits.

  But it was not a joke, it was a nightmare. So many thoughts tumbled around Mabel’s mind – what if the mistress came along? What had she done to cause this? Was this punishment for all the times she’d been an annoyance to him lately? What did the master want from her?

  Then all thoughts deserted her as one of his hands released its grip on her hip and was thrusting between her legs, fumbling through the layers of cloth towards her private parts.

  Mabel thought she was going to be sick. She should fight, shout, but she had no strength, no energy.

  The hand met flesh, the soft, white flesh of her inner thigh. The fingertips were creeping upwards. The horror of it was unbearable. Then the fingers were poking her, forcing their way inside her. She felt faint, her head whirling, giddiness overtaking her. She started to scream but he stopped her, whipping his other hand over her mouth, leaning forward and hissing in her ear.

  ‘Keep quiet.’

  The words echoed around her head which was suddenly empty of everything except what was happening here and now. She had no past and no future, just this horrendous, terrifying present. She didn’t know if she would survive. Was he trying to kill her?

  His fingers continued their groping and she got her answer. No, she wouldn’t die. But she would feel as if she had.

  The master took his hand away from her mouth but she knew better than to make a sound, was too terrified to be able to, even if she’d wanted to. He was doing something to himself, to the thing in his trousers, and his breathing was coming faster and faster as his wrist moved quicker and quicker until he let out a moan and fell forward, crushing her into the floor. Her head hit the ground with a sickening thump, the crack of bone against hard wood. The cold solidity of the floorboards was the only thing that was real, that and the mop leaning against the wall. Its dirty grey fronds were comforting somehow, familiar and friendly, like a friend with messy hair smiling amusedly at her while wondering what she was doing down there.

  A couple of seconds passed. It felt like half of Mabel’s life. Then the master calmly stood up, rearranged his dark suit and lumbered heavily away without another word. Mabel stayed where she was until she was conscious that so much time had passed Cook would be wondering what she was up to.

  In a daze, she stood up, staggering as did so, her head spinning. She leant her hands against the wall, using it to ground herself, to support her. Picking up her feather duster and her cloth, she left the closet, fear of being caught slacking almost as strong as the terror and disgust of what had just happened. There was a fearful irony in the fact that she had been told to stay away from men, but this man thought he could treat her how he liked. She knew what the master had done to her was wrong. But what she could do about it? Absolutely nothing. Complain, and she’d lose her job instantly. Protest, and he’d throw her straight out on the streets. No one would listen and no one would believe.

  Cook was right. It was always the girls who got the blame.

  Chapter Thirty

  Norwood, 1901

  It was a week before Antonio began to show signs of improvement.

  ‘Why are you looking so sad, Mother?’ he asked, as his eyes flickered fully open for the first time since he’d collapsed in the jungle outside the compound. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Tears burst from Katharine’s eyes, the pent-up, stifled weeping that she had staved off for so long. She didn’t want to worry him by crying in front of him but once it had started, she couldn’t stem the flow.

  Alarmed, Antonio tried to sit up, but did not have the strength and sank back wearily into the bed. Gradually becoming aware of where he was, he looked around him in puzzlement.

  ‘I’ve been ill,’ he said, as a statement of fact rather than an enquiry. ‘That’s why I’m in
bed. And why you’re crying.’

  Katharine wept some more and then finally, with a few hearty sniffs, managed to stop.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and then added with a weak smile, ‘right on both counts.’

  ‘Huh,’ grunted Antonio, as if he’d run out of energy for speech already.

  Rosabel bustled in with chicken soup and pity. ‘My boy is awake!’ she cried. ‘After so many days.’ She patted Antonio’s forehead and smoothed his hair. With a faint, fragile smile, Katharine watched as Antonio flinched away from the unwelcome attention and fuss.

  ‘Your mother!’ continued Rosabel. ‘Your mother has not left your side. She love you so much, she do anything for you!’

  Wary of offending her, but conscious that Antonio needed as much rest and peace and quiet as possible, Katharine managed to manoeuvre her in the direction of the kitchen on the pretext of cooking something delicious for his supper. When she’d gone, Antonio met her eyes.

  ‘Thank you for looking after me,’ he said. ‘I knew you were there, even during the fever. Everything was muddled – but I knew it was you. I could feel you willing me to get better.’

  Katharine gazed upon her only child with a look of raw, exposed adoration.

  ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘I love you more than the world, more than any other living being. I could never love anyone more than I love you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t love anyone but me,’ demanded Antonio, suddenly petulant, showing himself as the immature ten-year-old boy he was. ‘Don’t love anyone else but me.’

  Katharine leant forward and kissed his forehead. ‘No, of course not. No one but you.’ She said the words, knowing that she was lying because she also loved Thomas, but told herself that didn’t count, that filial love was different to romantic. Antonio didn’t need to know about Thomas, not now, not for a long time, not until he was old enough to understand.

  Over the next hours and days, Antonio became more alert, able to sit, and then stand, for longer periods every day, although the fever returned in twenty-four-hour cycles, knocking him flat again for a few hours. Katharine continued to treat him with the fever tree powder that the Indians collected for her and allowed herself the faintest glimmers of hope – that he would survive, that his strong young body could fight this infection and conquer it.

  Thomas, meanwhile, suffered on, sometimes racked by shivering chills, at other times by overpowering sweats. He drifted in and out of consciousness, in his more lucid moments complaining of terrible headaches and nausea. Though Katharine administered the same treatment to him as to Antonio, it did not seem to be having the same effect. Panicking, she asked Santiago for his advice.

  ‘Be patient,’ he said, sympathetically. ‘It can take time for the medicine to work. All will be well, believe me.’

  Katharine wanted ardently to do just that. She forced herself to keep calm, to eat and drink to preserve her own strength. It would only make matters worse if she got ill or collapsed. She tried not to think about the future because she couldn’t envisage one without Thomas in it.

  Eventually, three weeks after she’d found them lying on the forest floor, Thomas finally took a turn for the better, sitting up in bed and asking for water, calling to Rosabel for a cup of hot coffee and pancakes.

  Katharine laughed when she heard him, from relief tinged with hysteria. Ill for so long and now all he could think about were pancakes? She rushed to his side to help him to the table, but he gently shook her off.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he insisted, clearly hating any thought that he might be dependent on her or anyone. ‘Absolutely fine.’ He looked around anxiously, scouring the compound. ‘But where is Antonio?’ There was a hint of alarm in his voice, as if he were thinking the worst. ‘He was ill, too – and now I can’t see him anywhere.’

  Katharine touched his hand. ‘It’s all right,’ she reassured him, ‘he’s well. Much better. So much so that he’s gone to mess around with the Indian boys, swimming and fishing.’

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ breathed Thomas, pausing on his way to the dining table, clearly finding the activity, however minimal, taxing to limbs that had lain prostrate for days. ‘I had dreams… I saw him… I couldn’t have borne it if something… if he…’

  Unable to finish the sentence, he sank heavily to a chair. He looked up and met Katharine’s eyes with his, which were still yellowed and blurry with sickness. ‘You know what I mean.’

  Katharine nodded silently. She poured him water and passed the tin mug of coffee that Rosabel brought.

  ‘Pancakes are cooking, sir,’ said Rosabel. ‘Ready soon.’ No one had told her to call Thomas ‘sir’, she just did.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Katharine, softly, when the cook had returned to the frying pan. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

  He smiled at her and she smiled back because they both knew this, that the understanding that lay between them was deeper than words, deeper than what needed to be articulated.

  After this, the illness and the recovery, everything was changed.

  Katharine no longer had doubts that she and Thomas should be together, no longer told herself that Thomas was an impossible dream, a forbidden fruit. Life was short – in the Amazon, more so than anywhere – and needed to be lived to the full, all opportunities for happiness grasped with both hands. She had spent precious time before Anselmo died worrying about their future, but if she had known how brief that future was to be, she would have tried to behave differently. She didn’t want to be plagued by such regret ever again.

  She and Thomas would have a relationship, even if it had to be kept a secret.

  One evening, they found themselves alone together in her living room on the first floor of the house. An opalescent moon hung low in a navy blue sky dotted with smudged stars. All around them, the jungle hooted and shrieked but between the two of them a silence fell.

  Katharine ran her hands over Thomas’ face and shoulders, along his arms to his hands. He had lost weight, his collar bone protruding like a hollow, curved bow, but some of his vitality had returned, and she knew his body would soon be as powerful as ever. As their fingers touched, he grasped hers in his.

  ‘Thank you for all you did for me,’ he whispered.

  Katharine glanced away, at the river down below them, calmly racing on its way to the ocean, its many-thousand-mile journey only just begun.

  ‘It was nothing,’ she replied. ‘I would have done it for anyone. But for you – and my Antonio – I would lay down my own life for either of you.’

  ‘I know.’

  Thomas pulled her towards him and held her close, so close that they could feel each other’s hearts beating.

  ‘And I would do the same for you,’ he murmured, brushing her red hair softly with his lips. The contact seemed to remind him of something and he moved her slightly away from him, raising his arms to remove the pins from her hair and let it fall. He picked up thick tresses in his hands and watched them ripple through his fingers. ‘Such beautiful hair,’ he said. ‘I never saw such hair before.’

  Katharine gave a short laugh. ‘You wouldn’t believe how it is ridiculed at home, how teased I used to be about it.’

  Thomas shook his head in disbelief. ‘I wouldn’t, you are right.’

  He stood up, leading her by the hand to her bedroom, where he shut the door and put a chair under the handle in case Antonio should stir in the night and come to find his mother. With that precaution taken, the atmosphere changed, becoming frenetic and frenzied as they tore off each other’s clothes and then fell onto the bed where Thomas made love to Katharine in a way she had never experienced before, nor even imagined.

  ‘We can’t tell anyone,’ she told him in the morning, when the dawn light woke them. ‘No one can know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  It was difficult, with so many people around, but in snatched minutes and furtive hours, they got to know each other and to forge bonds so tight that Katharine knew nothing but death could
ever sever them. Giddy with joy, she went about her business with her head in the clouds. One day, she watched her lover and her son as they played on the liana rope swing, their strength and fitness restored. One after the other they swung out, then dropped to the water with bodies straight as dice, barely rippling the surface, before swimming strongly back to shore.

  Katharine, feasting her eyes upon the joyous sight and laughing, thought she had never been this happy, had never imagined such happiness. And even though the illness had been terrible, both it and the journey that preceded it had served one useful purpose, which was to take Antonio’s mind off the absence of his adored uncle. Mayhew was safe and sound in Manaus, getting up to goodness knew what extracurricular activities, but actually doing a good job of representing Norwood Enterprises’ interests there. Katharine hoped, for her son’s sake, that he would come back for a visit soon – but perhaps not too soon.

  A huge splash took her attention off Mayhew and back to the here and now. For a second, her heart lurched as she recalled her frenzied rescue of Mac and Antonio all those years ago. But it was a false alarm; everything was fine, just Thomas doing a belly flop to amuse the child.

  ‘Hurrah,’ she shouted across to them, and they waved back in reply. Observing them now, so full of life, of vigour and vivacity, she could hardly believe that so very recently, she had thought she might lose them both.

  It was a miracle.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Manaus, 1901

  Mac and Mayhew relaxed down onto the soft cushions of the steamer’s luxurious sofas. Mayhew smiled to himself as he thought of the rough wooden chairs of Norwood. Oh, my sweet little sister Katharine, if only you could see me now. The words flitted through his head as a beautiful, pale-skinned girl brought them champagne, ice-cold and effervescent. Mayhew narrowed his eyes to scrutinise her intently. Polish or Russian probably, and Jewish. Such fair, blonde women from Europe were the mistresses of choice for the wealthy in Manaus. He’d make sure he tracked her down later. In this city, everything and everyone could be bought – for a price.