The Fever Tree

by Jennifer McVeigh

  The last month had been spent on her own in the house. The cook had left not long after the funeral, and her meals had been taken at the desk in the morning room, prepared by Lotta. Frances had hoped Lucille would visit, but her cousin never came. She wanted to tell someone about the dread which was bearing down on her. She was frightened of leaving England, and needed reassurance that she wouldn’t be forgotten. She called on the Hamiltons, but the maid told her they had gone to Bath for the month. Frances had taken to waking up in the dead of night, her heart pounding. It was always the same dream. She was floating on the surface of a black sea, and when she screamed no one could hear her.

  After a few minutes, she walked down the hall, her boots clacking on the stone floor. She pushed open the door to her father’s study. The hinges creaked, and the familiar sound conjured an image of him sitting at his desk, but when she stepped into the room it was empty. The curtains had been stripped from the windows, and the rug had been pulled off the floor, exposing raw, unpolished boards. The room smelt of him. Of cigar smoke and something else that lingered.

  The only piece of furniture left over from the auction was his chair, which stood alone in the center of the room, almost as if his ghost sat upon it. The green leather on the seat had wrinkled, and there was a dip from the many years of bearing his weight. She placed a hand on the hollow, half expecting it to be warm, but it was cool and slightly tacky against her palm. She sank into the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest. When she thought she might cry, she clenched her jaw and pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes until the blackness was punctured by shards of light. Perhaps if she stayed exactly where she was, the world would come to a halt and she would never have to leave. But a moment later she heard a hammering on the door. It was the cabdriver, impatient to be off, and she uncurled herself and—for the last time—walked down the hall and out of the house.

  • • •

  PADDINGTON STATION was a heaving roar of noise and smoke. Crowds surged in all directions. Frances, unused to such a rush of people, was momentarily overwhelmed. She had only a few minutes to get herself and her luggage on the train, but she couldn’t find a porter. Cursing the cab which had flung her down on the side of the street, she lugged her trunk toward the station concourse. Men pressed against her on all sides. A boy selling the Penny Paper walked up and down the line shouting the day’s news. Usually she would have had Kerrick or her father here to help, but usual didn’t count. She would have to make do by herself.

  “Watch where you’re at!” Two young porters in caps ran past, wheeling trolleys piled high with cases.

  “You’ll get run over if you stand there!” one of them shouted, knocking her sprawling onto the wet station floor. She stood up, brushed the mud off her skirts, and pushed her way along the edges of the throng until the crush eased. There was a pie shop, closed for business, and she stood for a moment resting in the doorway. There was no porter here, just two businessmen in black frock coats who walked past her without a second glance. Something tugged at her sleeve and she swung round, bumping into a thick-waisted man who wore an old coachman’s blue greatcoat, buttonless and blackened by damp. His hair was matted with grease, and his breath smelt of drink. “Sewin’ cotton, Miss?”

  She shook her head with an attempt at authority, but he bent closer, thrusting forward a rack of dirty cotton reels. His hand was swollen with cold; black grime etched between bulges of tight red skin. He edged forward as she backed away. “Cotton, Miss?” He took a step nearer. “On’y one for a penny.”

  Frances turned, but he was too agile. “Cat got your tongue? Too fancy to talk?”

  He waddled towards her with exaggerated steps, laughing and gyrating his hips until she was backed up into the small doorway with her shoulders pressing into the knocker and the man’s coat, stiff with age, brushing the front of her dress. He snatched at her wrist and held it, and when he smiled his mouth was full of broken, yellowing teeth.

  “I need a bit of cash,” he said, leering at her. She shoved him away with her free hand, but the strike had no impact on the solidity of his body. He grasped her wrist and twisted it with the other into the grip of one hand. Then he felt around her waist for a hidden purse. Frances screamed, and a moment later his body was being dragged away from her by a tall, well-built man in a tweed jacket with wild black hair and a thick beard. The cotton seller stumbled away.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking at her closely. He had dark eyes, like pools of ink. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. Thank you.” Her voice shook slightly. “Could you help me? I’m meant to be catching the one o’clock to Southampton, but I’m afraid it leaves any minute. I need a porter.”

  “That’s my train,” he said, swinging her trunk effortlessly onto one shoulder. “Platform three. We’d better hurry or we’ll miss it.” He shouldered his way through the crowds and across the concourse, and she followed in his wake. Their train, still motionless, belched clouds of steam, while men in uniform walked down the platform shutting up the doors.

  “Lucky I happened to be there,” he said, handing her up. There was a piercing whistle, and the train shuddered into life.

  “Thank you,” she said, turning in the doorway, but he was already gone, darting up the platform to the first-class carriages.

  • • •

  THE TRAIN CAREERED through the outskirts of the city too fast to make anything meaningful of her last glimpses of London, but there was no use wishing it to slow down. Her life in England was over. In her portmanteau was a ticket stamped “Female Middle Class Emigration Society.” Edwin had paid for her passage to Cape Town under the protection of the charity, and in a compartment at the end of the carriage she found the group of girls traveling to South Africa. She stepped inside, and an absentminded-looking, middle-aged woman with round eyes and florid cheeks looked up reluctantly from her Bible.

  “Miss Irvine?”

  Frances nodded.

  “Good. I was worried we had lost someone already.” She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief. “I’m Sister Mary-Joseph, your matron for the journey.”

  The girls shifted along the bench to make room, and Frances sat down between the window and a girl with blond curls, who gave her a broad, white-toothed smile and offered her a mint.

  “Thanks,” Frances said, dipping her hand into the paper bag.

  “I’m Mariella.”

  “Frances.”

  The girl leant in and breathed a wave of peppermint into her ear. “She’s not reading the Bible, you know. There’s another book hidden inside the cover.”

  “What is it?” Frances whispered.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

  Sister Mary-Joseph was employed by the charity to safeguard the moral health of her eight charges, ensuring they didn’t fall in love with the first seaman who smiled at them. Frances knew that these girls, like her, must be apprehensive about the kind of lives they would find in South Africa, but she couldn’t help envying them. They had signed up to teach or to nurse. Their lives were to some extent their own, and they would more than likely marry someone of their own choosing. She traced a gloved finger through the condensation on the window, revealing a flickering strip of green. There was no changing the future towards which she was rapidly hurtling.

  Only yesterday she had given up her mourning clothes, folding them into a box which would be sent, with the last of her possessions, to Lucille and Victoria. Edwin had written telling her to bring only the simplest things. He had hinted at limited means, saying that their day-to-day lives would be basic. Colonial girls, he wrote, were different to their counterparts in England. It wasn’t beneath even the best of them to cook, sew, and do the washing. She wouldn’t have any need for fine dresses and white gloves. Instead, he told her, use the space in your luggage for things of use which couldn’t be found easily in South Africa. At least two pairs of strong boots for walking, gloves fo
r gardening, a good sewing kit, some muslin which could be sewn into nets to keep off flies, and fabric—at least ten yards—to make curtains. Her trousseau should be as practical as possible. Don’t be tempted to bring silverware and expensive linen; instead pack cooking utensils and one or two good iron pots. If you possibly can, he wrote, bring a sewing machine. It will be an enormous comfort to you. Frances struggled to imagine any scenario in which a sewing machine would be a comfort to her. She hadn’t the first idea how to use one.

  Edwin’s list was so outlandish that when she tried to picture her life in South Africa, she kept coming back to an image of herself sitting at a sewing machine wearing canvas gloves and heavy-duty leather boots. It might have made her laugh if he hadn’t been so clearly serious. He obviously didn’t have any idea of her capabilities. He had insisted on having her because she was Sir John Hamilton’s niece, and now he wanted her to become some kind of missionary’s wife. Still, she had done her best, conceding to the boots and gloves and using up precious space in her trunk for two iron pots. Almost everything fashionable had been left behind. Alongside her two cotton dresses, her black woolen bodice and skirt, and her stockings and undergarments, she had brought only one pair of white kid gloves, a bundle of lace, and a silk evening dress—there was bound to be an occasion at Kimberley when she would want it. She had packed a white muslin gown for the wedding and a pair of straw hats to keep off the sun. She wasn’t sure what she would be able to find in South Africa, so she had brought a few pots of oil of cacao, two bottles of tuberose perfume, enough powder to last six months, and some bath soaps. There was a book on household management—a gift from her aunt, Lady Hamilton—and finally, stowed at the bottom of the trunk, her easel and her watercolors.

  The two girls sitting on the bench opposite had struck up a quick friendship. They were debating which was worse, a Boer or a Bushman. Their voices clattered over the fragile silence kept by the rest of the compartment. Occasionally, a tunnel shuttered them in momentary darkness and they were quiet, only to start up again when the train burst out into the light.

  Cornfields gave way to rolling green downs, the sky became overcast, and rain began to fall in spats against the window. A cemetery was backed too close to the railway track, gravestones gaping out like broken teeth. The train cut through a chalk escarpment down into an open, verdant valley floor, past a forest of hawthorns and an ugly flat-roofed brick building which loomed out of a clearing in the trees: Southampton’s poorhouse. All of a sudden the landscape opened up and they were skimming along the edge of Southampton Water to the mouth of the Itchen. A beach of clean white shingle curved away from the track, and they were there.

  Porters darted onto the train, offloading their trunks onto trolleys marked “The Cape Run.” Frances stepped down behind a scrawny boy who was clutching a birdcage half his size. His mother snatched up his hand and scolded him for dragging his feet. The girls walked down the platform, past the first-class carriages, where servants in livery were handing down luggage. There was no sign of the man who had helped her, and she wondered whether he had been too late to board the train.

  The station led right onto a promenade, an open expanse of sea and sky framed by green hills rising up on either side of The Solent. The wind snatched at their umbrellas and made sails of their skirts. The air was damp with rain and held the sharp, metallic taste of salt and, beneath it, the cloying stench of rotting fish. Mail wagons belonging to steam-packet companies with names like “Oriental” and “The West India” surged up from the docks. Coaches and luggage wagons competed for space, offloading cargo and passengers, who scrambled out onto the wet cobbles shouting for their footmen to follow. A man with a wheedling voice called “Iced ginger beer” to a cold, uninterested crowd. Sister Mary-Joseph ushered the girls over to a sailor who was shouting above the commotion, “The Cambrian this way! Passengers for the Cape run!”

  They joined a group of bedraggled figures waiting to be handed down into a small steam tug. A stretch of canvas had been drawn across it for shelter. The sea looked dark and ugly under the blanket of fine rain. It moved with a lurching swell, swilling corrugated boxes and submerged newspapers up against the side of the pier. When it was Frances’s turn, she stepped forwards and gave her hand to the ship’s boy, put a foot carefully onto the slick wood, and stepped down into the belly of the boat. Black smoke pumped up into the dark, wet sky. A steam packet maneuvered its way out from behind them, and the tug heaved in its wake, grinding itself against the algaed bricks of the pier. As they headed out into The Solent, the sky brightened. Seagulls wheeled and mewed above them, flashes of gray in a high white sky. One of the girls pointed out the Isle of Wight, and they all strained to look at the faint shadow of hills etched against the horizon.

  The tug chugged over to the docks and into the shadow of the Cambrian. The steamship towered over them, motionless on the surface of the sea, like a huge factory with its steel plates and black funnels. Two squat collier ships were pulled up next to it, and their crews heaved sacks of coal onto pulleys. Frances lifted her shawl over her shoulders to prevent the fine black coal dust from settling on her dress. It was cold, and a forlorn gloom had fallen over the girls. Excitement had given way to apprehension. The seawater swilling around in the bottom of the boat seeped into their boots, and when Frances scrunched her toes, water oozed out from between the leather seams. The colliers finally finished, but they had to give way to a smart little steamship which had pulled alongside carrying first-class passengers. More waiting under a drizzling rain. The women from the Female Middle Class Emigration Society were low priority in the scheme of things.

  An hour later, their clothes wet through to the skin, the girls clambered up a ladder onto the deck. A turmoil of passengers from all cabins, first down to steerage, milled together, impatient to find their berths. A woman, looking anxious, clutched her shawl and demanded to know where she would find her luggage. Casks, barrels, and crates were being loaded onto the deck by sailors whose voices carried above the racket. Wire boxes stuffed full of squawking chickens were stacked one on top of another, and a cow, supremely calm, licked the fresh paint from the balustrade.

  “Miss Irvine?” Frances turned to see a florid-faced gentleman with orange whiskers bearing down on her. “Well, what about this!” he cried. “I didn’t know you were traveling on the Cambrian.”

  “Mr. Nettleton.” She gave him her hand, and he turned to the group standing behind them at the stern.

  “Liza!” He waved to his wife. “Look who I’ve found!”

  Mrs. Nettleton, a friend of her cousin Lucille, was easy to spot. She was a tall woman with a manicured beauty: no eyebrows, and a neat, fashionable hat trimmed with brightly colored parrot feathers, now beading with the rain which blew in under her umbrella. The hat looked pathetically jaunty against the iron-gray sea. She was talking to a broad-shouldered gentleman whom Frances recognized as the man who had helped her in the station. He had made the train after all. Neither of them looked up, although Frances was sure Mrs. Nettleton had seen her.

  “Liza!” her husband called again. “It’s Miss Irvine!”

  His wife said something in a low voice to her companion, and stepped over to them. She gave Frances a thin smile. “How do you do, Miss Irvine?” She didn’t offer her hand. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Thank you.”

  The gentleman joined their group, gazed at her, and—when she caught his eye—winked. His eyes, dark lashed and heavy lidded, weren’t black, as they had looked in the gloom of the station, but a rich amber flecked with green, like stones glinting underwater. She smiled at him. There was an awkward silence while everyone waited for Mrs. Nettleton to make introductions. After a moment, Frances realized that Liza Nettleton, who had known her since she was a very young girl, was refusing to introduce her. She froze in embarrassment and felt a deep flush rising up her neck.

  Ignoring her, Mrs. Nettleton turned to her husband. “Can you believe they stil
l won’t show us to our cabin? I think you should have another word with the steward.”

  The other gentleman ran a hand over his jaw and looked at Frances. “We have already had the pleasure of making each other’s acquaintance, but there wasn’t time to ask your name.”

  “Ah, so you’ve met already,” Mr. Nettleton said, looking pleased. “Miss Irvine, this is Mr. William Westbrook. Mr. Westbrook, Miss Frances Irvine.”

  Frances gave the man her hand. He didn’t look English, though his voice carried no accent. He had a well-trimmed beard, wire-black. His nose was straight and fine-boned, but his nostrils flared slightly and his mouth had a wide fullness which was curling into a smile as he looked at her. She realized he understood her awkwardness and it amused him.

  “Miss Irvine is Sir John Hamilton’s niece,” Mr. Nettleton said, glancing anxiously at his wife, who was looking unhappy. Then he said to Frances, “Did I miss your name on the passenger list? Who are you traveling with?”

  “I have assisted passage to Cape Town.” Her hand went to her throat, where it began to pull nervously at the soft skin of her neck. Awkward questions were sure to follow the revelation that she was traveling second class.

  Mrs. Nettleton glanced over at the huddle of girls by the balustrade. “With the Female Middle Class Emigration Society?” Frances nodded. “I’ve done some charity work for them in London. A wonderful organization. In fact,” she said, laying a hand on Mr. Westbrook’s arm, “Mrs. Sambourne, who chairs the society, is a very good friend of mine.” She gave Frances a smile, both sympathetic and dismissive. “You must let me know if I can help with anything. Mrs. Sambourne asked me specifically to keep an eye on her girls.

  “Now, Mr. Westbrook,” Mrs. Nettleton said in a confidential tone, leading him away, “you promised to help us with our little theatrical presentation. Do you know The Palace of Truth?”