The Fever Tree

by Jennifer McVeigh

  Mariella stood with a group of girls every afternoon near the chalked line that marked the first-class deck. They propped themselves up on one another’s shoulders, leaning against the railings, laughing and nudging one another as they watched the first-class passengers. They noted the names of politicians, their wives, Lords and Ladies, filing away gossip and turning over every aspect of every woman’s dress. Frances was drawn to the camaraderie of the girls, but when Mariella beckoned to her to join them she stayed away, not wanting to be seen gawping by the Nettletons or Mr. Westbrook.

  She rose early in the mornings and took her coffee above board. There were few passengers around at this hour, and she enjoyed watching the sailors scrubbing the decks, shaking out the sails, and polishing the metal until it shone. It was cool, the air was fresh, and the deck was uncluttered by the canvas chairs which sprang up after breakfast. George Fairley was always there before her, greedily inhaling his first cigarette of the day. He was in his forties, small and compact, with a soft flop of tawny hair and an anxious habit of chewing the side of his nails until they bled.

  He liked to talk, and Frances enjoyed listening, grateful not to have to tell her own story. He had been a small landowner but had lost everything in the depression. He talked to her about the rivers on his farm in Devon, shearing sheep in a snowstorm, and his hatred for the new cities with their vast factories pumping black smoke into the horizon. Frances hadn’t realized that the steamships importing wheat and refrigerated meat from the Americas had done such damage to English farmers.

  “I ended up in Sheffield, working for a steelworks making parts for the very steamships which had done me in!” George laughed wryly and rubbed at the stubble that bristled across his face. “Which gave me the idea to emigrate.”

  He hoped to find diamonds and make his fortune—or, if not a fortune, then enough money to live comfortably. Frances was captivated by his tales of the diamond fields. The Vaal River was a utopia in the desert, George said. Huge boulders clung to the banks of a swirling mass of green water. When you rolled them away a clutch of diamonds glistened beneath, each as fat and round as a plover’s egg. George had an uncle who had spent two weeks digging on the Vaal. Long enough to make his fortune.

  They stood one morning, watching a troop of swallows which had been following the ship since they set out. The birds, lightning quick, swooped and dipped in a shifting cloud, skimming the surface of the water, never left behind for a moment.

  William Westbrook crossed the deck in front of them, and George called out, “Sir, could I detain you a moment?”

  “Certainly.” Mr. Westbrook stopped, nodding at Frances but not greeting her. She wondered if he was cross that she had declined his invitation to dinner.

  “I have heard you’re a man who knows about diamonds?” George asked expectantly.

  “I know a little.”

  “I have contacts on the Vaal River. Do you have any advice?”

  “What did you do before?”

  “I was a farmer.”

  “Well, then, I advise you to go back home and farm.”

  George stared at him for a long second. “What do you mean?”

  “The Vaal is no good. The sands have run dry.”

  “Dry?” George Fairley was incredulous.

  “They haven’t been digging there for years. The camps have moved to New Rush, Kimberley, though you’ll not have much luck there. It’s a thousand pounds a claim, and even if you could afford it, the earth is hard as rock.”

  George was silent, taking this in, and Frances saw how awful it was for him to hear it.

  “How hard? Can a man dig it?”

  “You’d have to work like a mule, and even then . . .”

  “But how do most men do it? I’ve heard with a bit of luck you can get rich.”

  “In the old days, yes. Now the claims are being consolidated it’s too expensive. You need a team of natives, guards to make sure they don’t steal, influence on the mining board to stop them squeezing you out, and, of course, men you trust to sort the good stuff from the bad.”

  “There must be other sites?”

  “And you think there aren’t men who have looked? Men who know the ground better than you?” William Westbrook must have been ten years his junior, just a boy to George, but it was clear he had more experience, and it was hard to doubt he was speaking the truth. His voice was respectful but firm. “I’ll be honest, Sir, since it might save you. I’ve seen men broken by prospecting. They end up worse than kaffirs, crawling round in the bottom of the mines without even a shirt on their backs.”

  George Fairley looked at him, speechless. “But even supposing you are right, I can’t go home. There is nothing for me there.”

  Mr. Westbrook shrugged with a touch of impatience. “You’d be better off in an English workhouse.”

  “I don’t believe you, Sir,” George said, his voice cold with anger. He flicked his cigarette overboard. “You’d rather not have the competition, is that it? You should be ashamed of yourself.” He turned on his heel and left them both standing there.

  “Why did you do that?” Frances demanded.

  Mr. Westbrook looked at her coolly from under heavy-lidded eyes, and she realized she had never seen him serious before. His jaw had locked and his face was impenetrable. All humor had drained from his face. “I told him the truth.”

  “Did you have to make it so bleak?” He didn’t answer, so she said, “He has put everything into this venture.”

  His nostrils flared, and his eyes were blank when he turned to look at her. “And do you care so very much about him?”

  The question was ridiculous. “He needed hope, Mr. Westbrook, not someone trampling over his future.”

  “I told him the truth, Miss Irvine. If it sounded harsh, it is because it is an unpleasant truth to have to deliver. South Africa can be a difficult place to make a living. A man of his age would be better off in England, with his family.”

  He was gone before she had the chance to apologize. It wasn’t until she thought it over later that she realized she had been naive. It was quite possible he was right, and she wished she hadn’t disagreed with him when she hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about.

  Eleven

  Two days later the captain issued a gale warning. At five o’clock the wind began to blow and the sky turned dark. The light was sucked into a mass of granite clouds. The timbers of the ship creaked as she climbed the waves. Frances went down to the cabin and found Anne perched on the end of Mariella’s bunk. The room was cold and damp, and Mariella was vomiting into a bowl.

  “What are they saying in the saloon about the storm?” Anne asked, looking at her with wide eyes. Frances gave her hand a squeeze. “We’re to keep our cabin windows shut.”

  Anne stroked Mariella’s hair and gave her a cloth to wipe her face. Then she wedged the bowl in next to her and climbed into her own bunk, defeated by the swell. Frances lay down, letting her body be rocked with the sickening heave of the ocean. She tried not to think about the prospect of a gale. When Mariella begged one of them to get some more tonic for her seasickness, Frances volunteered. She was relieved to have an excuse to leave the cabin. Sister Mary-Joseph had a berth to herself a few doors down. Frances knocked and stepped inside. The narrow space beside the bunk was strewn with dirty linen and half-finished plates of food. When Frances asked her for tonic she waved her away, either too sick or too scared to talk. Frances insisted, and she said, “There’s none left.” She turned to face the wall. “You girls have taken it all.”

  The doctor would have some. The surgery was at the stern of the ship, past the engine rooms. It was difficult navigating the narrow passages below deck, with their guttering lights and swinging doors. When the ship rolled, people were propelled towards you like balls down a cannon. She stepped through corridors swilling with water and vomit, then climbed the narrow stairs onto the deck. It would be quicker to cross to the stern this way, and she wanted to gauge wheth
er the weather was really as bad as it felt down below. The wind was fierce. It snatched at the door when she opened it and blew it back hard against its hinges. She stood for a second, steeling herself against the noise, then stepped out.

  The deck was a dark sweep of wet wood. Night had come on, and the weather had driven everyone but a few of the crew down to their cabins. She was at the center of a torrent of sound: the roar of the ocean, and above it the cleats rattling, and the wind screeching through the ropes. She caught hold of the rigging to keep her balance, buckling her knees to take the impact of another wave. A light curtain of spray swept over the ship, stinging her eyes. She clawed at her hair, scraping it off her face. It was rougher than she had expected.

  She ran the few steps to the railings which ringed the deck and looked out over the water. The lantern at the tip of the mizzenmast dipped to the sea starboard-side, rolled up and swung down again port-side. The pocket of light swooped over the ship and out to sea, catching the surface of the broiling mass before swinging back again. It cast a fractured light over the swell, illuminating in flashes the tips of great riders thundering towards the ship.

  The wind stepped up a notch, and a stinging rain flew at her in bright sparks under the circle of light. She edged her way along the deck, holding on to ropes as she went. Two sailors called to each other, their voices muted by the wind into the wordless mewing of gulls. Then, quite suddenly and without warning, the ship leapt. The deck pitched, rolled, and became a vertical. Her face slammed into the railings. Seawater surged over her, sweeping her off her feet. She tried to scream, but her mouth was full of water. It was cold, like melting ice, and it had fingers which pushed down into her throat. Then a sharp pain under one arm and a force pulling against her fall. A hand, like a vise, held her upright. She snatched at the figure, caught at a coat, and pulled herself against it. The man pushed her hard against the railings, so she knew where she was and felt safe from falling.

  The wind roared. She felt the strength of the man, and the rain driving against them, soaking her skin. She pushed her face into his chest. He pulled his jacket up around her head and spoke into her ear, his lips brushing against her skin.

  “We’re safer here for a moment. But you must move when I say so. Can you run?”

  She dreaded having to walk across the open deck, but she nodded her head against the wet wool of his coat. The storm had risen up in an instant. She could hear the hoarse shouts of the sailors and the screeching of ropes. The engine groaned. Her legs felt weak, and there was a dull ache above one eye where her head had struck the railings. The ship felt as though it had no more strength than the leaf boats she had launched as a child into the small rapids of a stream, spinning desperately across the surface until the water sucked them down.

  The ship plunged into a wave, righted itself, and the man said, “Now,” in her ear. He moved, flipping her round so that she was in front of him and his back was against the railings, then he propelled her forwards. They stumbled and slid with the motion of the ship, his weight behind her until they reached the stairs. He wrenched back the door and pushed her inside, and they slipped down the steps to the deck below. Her stomach contracted and she doubled over, retching. Bile and salt water poured from her nose and mouth.

  “That was interesting.”

  She looked up, her face streaming water. William Westbrook was studying her, the corners of his mouth curling with amusement. “Some people might even have called it suicide.” Then he shook his head, running a hand over his hair, and water flew off him like rain from a dog.

  She was dizzy and sick, and she bent double, retching again, then stood up. Her legs felt light and very cold, and when she put out a hand she missed the wall. Mr. Westbrook caught her with one arm under hers, propping her up. “Oh no you don’t.”

  He sat her down at a table in the first-class saloon, found blankets to wrap around her, and ordered coffee from a terrified steward. When the coffee didn’t arrive he went off to hunt the steward down in the kitchens. She was numb with cold. There was no feeling from her feet to her thighs, and her upper body was gripped by convulsions. Once she started shaking it was hard to stop. Four men played cards in a corner of the saloon, passing a bottle between them and laughing as the ship threw them sideways, wreaking havoc with their game. The room was otherwise deserted. Most of the lights had been left to go out, and the red velvet and gilt mirrors which lined the walls were a mockery of grandeur in the midst of the dark storm blowing them across the sea. A few bottles of wine had escaped and were rolling loose across the floor. With every lurch of the ship, remains from dinner, left abandoned on the tables, clattered onto the carpet.

  Frances thought she had seen bad weather in the first few days they had been at sea when they had pitched and rolled, and the captain had praised her for having good sea legs. Now she understood. This was a tearing, terrifying thing. A storm that whined and howled, that swept them up and slammed them down again so hard the timbers of the hull sounded as if they were splintering. It blew in dark funnels, like water roaring down a tunnel. She held on to the edges of her seat to keep herself from being thrown across the room, and tried to stop herself thinking about how cold and black the water was outside, and what she would do if she was thrown into it. She was scared of dying. Not of death itself, but of the truth that dying delivered. It released a fear inside her which was corrosive, and it ate into all her certainties—that life was a noble, worthwhile thing, that her parents’ deaths had meaning, that it was something other than fear which lay at the root of every action.

  Mr. Westbrook came back carrying the coffee in a large mug with a saucer held over the top to stop it from spilling. He sat down next to her, pulled a bottle from his coat pocket, and splashed a little into the mug. He spooned the hot, dark liquid into her mouth, holding the cup under her chin to catch it as it spilled. The weight of his body, the heavy line of his thigh, hip, and chest, pressed against her, holding her in place, and the spoon clattered against her teeth. The coffee was strong and it fired up her insides until her blood thickened. When she stopped shaking he placed the mug in her hand, took up a seat across the table opposite, and grinned at her. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have caught that fish?”

  She couldn’t believe that he could joke at a moment like this. She had the impression that he was enjoying himself. The extremity of the storm appealed to his restless energy and gave him a sense of purpose. He didn’t seem at all afraid. Like her father, the thought of death was leaving him unchanged, and being near him gave her courage.

  She managed to smile back at him. “Thank you for pulling me off the deck.”

  His eyes didn’t leave hers, and a slow smile crept over his face. “How are you planning to repay me?”

  She looked away, embarrassed. Her teeth chattered, and she was afraid. “I may not have to.”

  “You’ll not get away that easily.” He touched the back of her hand lightly in sympathy. “A steamer has a better chance than a sailing ship. Unless the weather gets much worse, it’ll hold its course.”

  Then he said after a moment, “I was disappointed when you didn’t accept my invitation. Why didn’t you come?”

  “I don’t know.” Her words were jerky, and it was difficult for her to move her lips. The coffee mug burnt into her hands, and her fingers had begun to ache. “I think I felt awkward accepting your kindness. It was charitable, but . . .”

  “Charitable?” He laughed. With the fingers of one hand he was turning a teaspoon from end to end, over and over, on the table. “Frances, I asked you because I like you. I wanted to see you.” He had bypassed formalities and was talking straight to her. She had the feeling there were no rules for where they found themselves now. He was staring at her, and she felt she ought to say something but she didn’t trust herself to speak. He put down the spoon and rubbed at a thin red scar on his cheekbone with the thumb of his right hand. She hadn’t noticed it before.

  “How did it happen?”

  �
�The scar? I was with my father.”

  “When you were a child?”

  He took her hand loosely in one of his. She felt the roughness of his skin across her fingers, and watched his mouth twitch into a smile. “Frances, your concern is charming, but my father didn’t beat me. He did, however, have a furnace. A spark of metal buried itself in my cheek.”

  There was a noise behind them and they turned in their seats. A woman ran past in her nightdress. She lurched from bench to bench, trying to keep herself upright. Her face was contorted into a silent wail. A man followed, wearing nothing but his shirttails.

  Mr. Westbrook laughed. “Respectable men turned into lunatics. They’ll all be ashamed of themselves tomorrow.”

  The storm showed no signs of easing, and when she had finished the coffee he took her to her cabin, using his weight as a wedge in the narrow corridor to keep them from falling. The lamps had gone out, and it was hard to tell in the dark which way was upright. When they reached her door, she didn’t open it but pushed herself round to face him. She was scared, and didn’t want him to leave. The blood pounded in her ears, louder than the screaming of the ship. “We’ll be all right,” he said, reaching out to touch her cheek. “There have been rougher storms than this, and people have survived them.” And then he was gone and she had to face her fears alone.

  The storm blew in even worse overnight. It was a brutal, raging force. It felt as if they were hurtling towards destruction. She lay in her berth fully dressed, gripped by a nausea which forced her to vomit again and again into a bowl which she held beside her. When the ship rolled she was thrown across her bunk and couldn’t stop the bowl from tipping. The thin bile slopped over onto the sheets, giving her skin a vile slipperiness. The only sounds from the cabin were Mariella’s sobbing and the clacking of Anne’s rosary. Frances grasped the edge of her bunk and found she couldn’t cry and she couldn’t pray. Instead, in her terror, she conjured up an image of William Westbrook. His confidence and disdain had seemed strong enough to hold back the storm. She tried to remember the strength of his body when he pulled her off the deck, fighting against the force of the sea. The bitter taste of coffee was still on her tongue, and her lips were burnt from where he had brought hot spoonfuls to her mouth. She held on to her vision of him, and braced her body against the waves.