Sound of Butterflies, The

by King, Rachael

  ‘It’s locked,’ she says, as if he could do something about it.

  ‘Do you have the key?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ she says. She stares at the wood for a moment, then knocks. ‘Thomas? Darling, are you in there?’

  There is no answer — of course — but from somewhere deep in the room there is a shuffle and the scrape of wood against wood: somebody pushing a chair. Mrs Edgar steps back and looks expectantly at the door, but it remains resolutely shut and the quiet from within burns.

  Ridewell coughs and shifts his weight. Mrs Edgar looks at him with drooping features. She runs those long fingers over her face and sighs; not for the first time in the last week or so, he is sure. He takes her elbow and begins to steer her back to the drawing room.

  ‘How about we have some tea? You haven’t offered me any tea, Mrs Edgar.’ He tries to make his voice seem jovial.

  ‘Yes.’ She gives him a weak smile. ‘Tea would be nice, wouldn’t it. Forgive me. After your long journey, as well. Where is it you’ve come from?’

  ‘Russell Square. Near the museum.’

  ‘Yes, Russell Square.’ Her voice is hollow and mechanical.

  The maid brings them tea and they chat idly about the weather. Mrs Edgar makes only a passing comment about her husband’s state — how he is missing church to remain in bed — and he tries to find in her words some clue to whether she has solved the mystery of his silence. He thinks perhaps there was some indiscretion on Edgar’s part — something he said in a letter once after Ridewell had inquired on Mrs Edgar’s behalf as to why he hadn’t written to her. It is a matter between myself and my wife, the letter had said, as if Mrs Edgar was on one side of a quarrel between them, when clearly, at least to Ridewell, she had no idea what was going on. But it is unlikely that this possible indiscretion had anything to do with his muteness; more likely he’s had some shock.

  He finds himself relaxing around her; the armchair, though worn, moulds to his shape with great comfort. Finally, he decides to just come out with it.

  ‘Mrs Edgar, have you found some clue as to what might be wrong with your husband?’

  She bites her lip and shakes her head. He has caught her off guard and her body closes in on itself.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I am as concerned as you are. You know your husband and I had a very genial correspondence for a time. Until …’

  ‘Until?’ She leans forward.

  He shrugs. ‘I’m sorry, madam. Until he reached Manaus, where his letters became …’

  ‘Yes? Mr Ridewell, you have shared none of this with me. I didn’t even have any letters from Manaus. Anything you can share with me I would be most grateful for. Did he, by any chance, mention a woman?’

  A-ha. He clears his throat. ‘No, not that I recall.’

  ‘But his letters seemed …’ She is egging him on.

  ‘Well, they seemed almost to have been written by another man. He became more and more obsessed with finding that yellow and black species he talked about, which frankly …’ He closes his mouth. It’s not his place to say that he thinks Edgar was making a fool of himself. How unlikely it is that such a butterfly exists, with wings two different colours. Really! It goes against all evidence of nature, of symmetry in the world of lepidoptera. It wouldn’t even be able to fly — its wings would be of different weight and density.

  He tries a different tack. ‘Many of his letters seemed … feverish. As if he were ill or something. Some of them even seemed a little … paranoid.’

  Her hand goes to her mouth. ‘Paranoid? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing to be too alarmed about,’ he says, his tone as reassuring as he can make it. ‘He just mentioned in his letters that he couldn’t say any more about some matters, that he thought somebody might be trying to hinder him. It’s as if he had stumbled on to something he desperately wanted to share but couldn’t. Does that make sense?’

  She nods at this, and her eyes slip out of focus as if she is listening to his voice across the sea.

  ‘Thank you for being so candid, Mr Ridewell. You’ve helped, I think.’

  No, I haven’t, he thinks. Not really. ‘What did the doctor say?’

  ‘That he’d had a bump on his head, and that he had perhaps had some kind of shock.’

  ‘And does he appear to be getting better?’

  ‘Yes, a little.’ She smiles for the first time a genuine smile, not simply a polite one. It is small, but it is there. ‘I think it is only a matter of time. Small steps, you know, Mr Ridewell.’

  He nods. ‘I understand.’ He thinks of his own wife at home, how he could never bear for anything like this to befall him, the pain it would cause her. And the two children still left at home, his married daughter, his sons safely in trades of their own, including young Francis, whom he is training to follow in his footsteps. There is no doubt about it: Mrs Edgar is a brave woman.

  ‘More tea?’ She raises the teapot and moves it towards his cup.

  ‘No, thank you. I should really be going. If your husband …’ How could he say it?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Ridewell. You came all this way.’ She stands up, draws herself upright and rigid. ‘We can at least pass the study on your way out and try the door again.’

  They don’t need to try it: the door stands slightly ajar. From within Ridewell detects the familiar smell of chloroform and naphthalene, used to protect specimens from the damp of the tropics. They both hesitate at the door, before Mrs Edgar puts her hand up and pushes. The door swings silently on its hinges.

  Edgar sits hunched at his desk. Two of the crates are open; tissue and sawdust litter the floor. On the surface of the desk are strewn cards with butterflies on them, scattered like coloured rags. In among them, Edgar scribbles furiously in a journal. Only when Mrs Edgar steps forward and her foot crunches onto sawdust does he look up. His face is grey and stony, but his eyes are clear and alive.

  Eight

  Manaus, January 1904

  He couldn’t write to Sophie. How could he? Every time he picked up his pen his mind whited out as if filled with glare, and his hand jerked and trembled. What could he write about, after all? The presence of Clara had filled his waking moments and many of his sleeping ones too. He had collected nothing; instead, he had wandered the streets of Manaus in a fug, along the waterfront with its floating dock that rose and fell with the rain. He ventured only a few yards into the forest. The company of butterflies was thin compared with the forest around Belém and Santarém, or perhaps he simply hadn’t seen them, so busy was he walking with hunched shoulders, eyes on the ground. But no — Ernie and George, too, had complained that they needed to venture further afield to find new specimens; there was nothing new for them here. While the lack of insects meant a respite from the mosquitoes that had plagued them on the Amazon, there was little other comfort in the fact.

  Thomas avoided conversation with Clara, and she didn’t pursue it with him. She was seated each evening next to John Gitchens and they would be deep in discussion for most of the meal. Only John was satisfied with the collecting in the immediate surroundings. The foliage was different on the Rio Negro, where tall palms dominated on the main river, here the scanty Jara palm hardly made a feature of the landscape. Santos looked on with approval — no doubt they were discussing botany, the hobby he sought to encourage in his wife. The first night she had looked up at Thomas only once, but Thomas felt the seconds of the gaze pounding in his ears. He hoped the others hadn’t noticed. When nobody was looking, he sometimes followed her with his eyes, trying to reconcile the image of the butterfly — so free-moving and graceful — with the woman before him. Part of him told himself he was mistaken, but he knew he was not. He thought her unusual-looking: not what one would call beautiful in conventional terms. She was very small, but buxom and wide-hipped, and her face had eyes that were too big and a nose and chin too small. She waddled slightly as she walked, like an old woman, although by Thomas’s estimate she was no more than thirty-five.<
br />
  On their fourth night at dinner, Ernie broached the topic that was on all their minds.

  ‘We’ve had a brilliant time here, sir, but we’ve all decided we should like to move on. If that is agreeable to you.’

  Santos gulped down a large mouthful of food and nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said, then cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me. Yes, I was going to suggest the same thing myself to you all. I notice you have not been collecting as much as I thought you might.’

  ‘To be honest, sir,’ said George, ‘there’s not as much to be collected here as in Belém, or even Santarém. Insects are the scarcest of all.’

  ‘I see. Mr Edgar? Do you find the same with your precious lepidoptera?’

  Thomas nodded. ‘I do, sir. I am also particularly interested in finding a certain butterfly that is rumoured to be around these parts. Sightings put it north of here, on the Negro. I should very much like to go and look for it.’

  ‘Rumoured? You mean it has not been found before?’

  ‘No. It is a most unusual species. Nobody has caught it or recorded it — only spoken of it. I don’t even know if it exists. It is rumour and hearsay.’

  ‘And what does it look like, this rumoured butterfly?’

  ‘It is large, of the Papilionidae — a swallow-tailed species. It is most unusually marked, with one side having yellow wings and the other black. Those colours generally indicate that it is poisonous — the yellow and black act as a warning to predators.’

  ‘It is an unlikely marking,’ said George. ‘Butterflies are by nature symmetrical, so this one would just be all wrong. We’ve been humouring you, though, haven’t we, Thomas?’

  Thomas gritted his teeth. What a time for him to speak up. Was George trying to humiliate him? ‘Yes, George, you have. But I am determined to find it. The source of the rumour is very well respected.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s like Chinese Whispers, isn’t it, old boy?’ said Ernie. ‘Who knows what Wallace or Bates or whoever it was said? They didn’t write it down.’

  ‘Spruce,’ said Thomas. ‘It was Alfred Wallace and Richard Spruce.’

  ‘Do you know, Mr Edgar,’ said Santos, ‘I believe I have heard of this butterfly you speak of. It is not just large but a giant. The local Indians have a name for it; I’m not sure what it is. In Portuguese it is “o beleza gigante”. They say it only appears at sunset. Local legend has it that there is a valley to the north where they are found in their thousands.’

  ‘And yet nobody has ever caught one?’ said George, barely keeping the scoff from his voice.

  ‘That’s right. The Indians have no use for catching butterflies, sir.’

  Thomas shot George a triumphant look. That put him in his place, surely. George was too resilient, too sure of himself.

  Santos continued. ‘They think we Europeans are strange for wanting to do so; after all, they cannot be eaten. The only explanation they can come up with is that we use them to copy pretty patterns onto our fabrics. Why on earth would we kill something that is of no use?’

  Thomas found that he had begun to tingle. Santos’s words filled him with new hope. So he was right. There was even a legend surrounding it!

  ‘This is good news indeed, sir. Might we make our way north?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Santos. ‘I have a camp a hundred miles from here that will suit your needs very well. I may even join you myself. My wife also.’

  Clara looked up from her plate. Her eyes were glossy onyx beads. They slipped to Thomas for a second and he looked away quickly. Did she know of the butterfly? She had been dressed as one that evening, hadn’t she? He tried to recall the costume she wore, but he could not; he could think only of his hallucination — that she was the butterfly. Now that he thought harder, he saw her fall back off him, both arms covered in black fabric. She was more like a moth. He heard her clear her throat as he shuddered.

  ‘That would be wonderful.’ Her voice was like cream, thick and smooth; her accent bejewelled her excellent English and made it sparkle. It was surprisingly loud for such a small woman.

  John spoke up. ‘Your wife has expressed interest in my work, sir. Perhaps this is an opportunity for her to learn something about botany. She may even be able to teach me a thing or two. She has already explained to me that the black of the River Negro is due to the nutrients of the rich forest in this part of the country.’

  ‘Has she now?’ Santos looked amused. ‘I did not know she knew that. You surprise me every day, my dear.’

  ‘And you surprise me, my dear.’ A mischievous smile curved her tiny mouth and she reached for another slice of meat. She placed it on her empty plate. The woman had an appetite, too; Thomas’s meal was only half finished and he already felt full.

  ‘Yes, Mr Gitchens,’ Santos went on, ‘I would be very happy for you to indulge my wife in her hobby. A toast, gentlemen. To your new expedition. To Mr Edgar’s butterfly, and to my lovely wife.’

  As they raised their glasses, Thomas’s eyes found Clara’s again, and this time, neither of them looked away.

  It was with more than the usual excitement that Thomas boarded the small boat that was to take them to their camp upriver. All feelings of shame over the affair with Clara were blotted out by anticipation. He could feel it now, the closeness of the Papilio sophia. The night before he had dreamed of it again. He had felt the velvet wings fluttering against his skin and all the tension that had been building inside him was released like a sigh.

  George fussed around as the porter carried his gear on. In addition to Antonio, their constant companion, Manuel, the mute Indian servant and a cook came with them, plus a skinny boy who looked no more than twelve or thirteen. The cook, a caboclo named Pedro, threw himself into helping load cargo and puffed about like a fat schoolboy chasing a football, while smiling and singing to himself.

  The morning light shimmered on the black water. Thomas shielded his eyes before he stepped to the edge of the dock to peer into its depths. His face was reflected back at him; the flesh hanging off it gave him a ghoulish appearance and he drew back again. The heat was rising. The shirt he had put on new this morning scratched at his hot skin. He turned his face upriver to where the Papilio sophia waited for him. Finding it would make everything all right. He felt his body straining towards it, as if it alone knew where it was; he would need only to follow its instincts and the butterfly would be his. Naming it after his wife would make it up to her. His life would be complete.

  ‘Where’s Ernie?’ George stood with a hand holding his new cane balanced on his hip. The few days they had spent in Manaus clearly agreed with him; though he had managed to maintain a relatively pristine state in the jungle, the heat and the insects, not to mention the dirt, had begun to affect his appearance. But now, his immaculate look was restored. He had been shopping for new clothes and they fitted his straight-backed frame well. Thomas wondered how long his new hat would keep its crisp shape before it wilted and drooped like a cut poppy.

  ‘He didn’t come home last night,’ said John. ‘I passed by his room very early this morning. His bed hadn’t been slept in.’

  At that moment, Ernie strolled up, looking freshly cleaned. He paused from his whistling to produce a handkerchief from his pocket and wipe his face.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Lovely morning. All ready for adventure, are we?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked George.

  ‘None of yours, my fine friend. And I shouldn’t like to compromise the young lady in question. I say, don’t you look smart?’

  George puffed out at this, his irritation with Ernie clearly forgotten. He patted his stomach and took a deep breath through his nose.

  ‘Where is all your gear, Ernie?’ Thomas whispered.

  ‘That butler fellow — what’s his name? He took it. I told him last night I might not be back in the morning. It’s all arranged. He said it would be. Look, there’s one of my bags now.’ He approached the men as they loaded the luggage and placed his hands b
eneath it as Pedro lifted, offering no support at all.

  Thomas sat on the deck watching the emerald of the forest trailing into the water. The vegetation was denser here, darker, and melded with the black water. On the other side of the boat, the shore could not be seen; were it not for the absence of salt in the air, Thomas might have fancied himself on a wide ocean.

  Rain approached; he felt the blood in his veins slow down; even the movements of the other men as they wandered past had been reduced to a sluggish crawl. He had come to understand that this was normal before the clouds opened and dumped their burden of water on the world below. He had learned to give in to it, to lie back with eyes closed and enjoy the sensation: the prickle of electricity on his tongue and his body wrapped in dense air. Just before the deluge hit, it would be preceded by a cooling wind. When he felt it on his skin, he knew the downpour was just a few minutes away.

  There was a new pleasure on this river — an absence of mosquitoes. He could sit without being harassed; the air was not punctuated by slaps and curses as it had been on the Amazon. Still, he was the only one sitting outside. Mrs Santos had her own room, where she had remained since their departure from Manaus. Santos, too, kept to himself, and Thomas observed endless trays of tea being taken to his cabin by the young boy. His skinny legs took careful steps, knees raised high, and he reminded Thomas of a heron picking its way through wetlands. His hands were white on the tray, so scared was he of spilling a drop, and he walked with his eyes on the teapot, his tongue poking out in concentration and sweat beading on his brow.

  Thomas remained outside, under cover, during the afternoon’s rain. He was too excited to be confined inside, and his eyes scanned the shore, as if he would find his butterfly flapping lazily between the trees and the water. He rolled cigarette after cigarette and watched the smoke drifting and melting in the rain.