The Fever Tree

by Jennifer McVeigh

  Later, she forced herself to visit the outhouse, pulling open the metal door and stepping into a storm of flies. There were black flies, green flies, blue flies. They settled on her face and buzzed in her ears. A pit had been dug in the soil, but newspaper and feces had clogged it up, spilling over onto the floor. Flies crawled inside the paper, gorging themselves. She stumbled outside, retching from the smell. It was too foul to stay in there for more than a second, so she went back into the tent and squatted over the chamber pot, then emptied it in the outhouse, just like the native boy had done. But it would have to be washed out. She found soap, but it wouldn’t dissolve in the cold water. She used a rag to clean the bowl then couldn’t get the smell off her hands. She wondered how she would ever wash in this place, or whether she would ever feel clean.

  The man from the tent opposite came by later, carrying his bedding rolled up under one arm. He stood at the entrance to her yard and nodded his hat at her. He was dressed in corduroy, with hands and face dark brown and worn like the leather on a saddle, and he had a heavy, untrimmed beard. He looked worn-out but tough, his face full of small nicks and scars.

  “You’ve just arrived?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve got something here for you,” he said, in a burring Cornish accent.

  “What is it?” she called out, glad to talk to someone who was English.

  “You’ll have to come and get it.”

  She walked over, and he handed her a tin of condensed milk.

  “Why?” she asked, unsure whether to take it.

  “Because you look like you could do with it.” His face broke open into a warm smile.

  “What’s a Cornishman doing here?”

  “The magnates spent a fortune bringing over fancy machinery, but once they got it here they realized they hadn’t a clue how to work it. So they shipped a bunch of us over to help.”

  “You’re an engineer?”

  “Not exactly, but I’m used to working underground.” He winked at her and walked off, whistling softly.

  Later, she found a rock and beat away at the tin until she had burst a small hole in its lid, then raised it to her lips and sucked out the sweetness. The dense sugar tasted very faintly of the metal from the tin. Occasionally she stopped to lick at the edges, cleaning the stickiness from its surface with her tongue. It wasn’t until she put it down that she noticed William Westbrook watching her. He stood on the other side of the fence, stroking Mangwa’s head, dressed in buckskin breeches and leather riding boots. She thought she could hear them creak as he walked into the yard. Her heart pounded and her blood beat thickly in her head. She tugged at her dress and pushed her hair behind her ears. How long had he been standing there?

  His white shirt was unbuttoned a little way, and she could see a triangle of his chest covered in tight, black hair. He walked towards her, and her spine tightened. She had imagined him so many times, but it was nothing like seeing him standing in front of her, real and unpredictable. She stood up, wiping her hands against the sides of her skirts and clasping them behind her back, acutely conscious of her fingernails caked with grime and her brown, fraying dress, which looked so much worse next to the starched brightness of his shirt.

  “You don’t look very pleased to see me,” he said, smiling.

  Her mouth was dry, and she licked her lips. Why hadn’t she at least plaited her hair this morning? The knot had worked itself loose, and she scraped the cloud of red curls off her shoulders. “I’m surprised, that’s all. We’ve only just arrived.” She looked around the desolate yard with its stench of raw sewage and had an image of herself as a crow perched on top of a heap of rubbish. She willed him to turn around and go, but there was no stopping him. He was already walking into the yard with the louche grace she remembered only too well, his boots stirring up small eddies of dust. He looked in rude health. His skin had turned the color of walnut in the sun, and when he smiled at her his teeth flashed white through his beard. He looked older, darker, and more solid than she remembered, not quite the same as she had thought he would be. This strangeness, coupled with the memory of his hands on her body, molding it into the shape of his desire, unnerved her, and she couldn’t speak.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  She colored, and as if reading her mind, he said, “You should see the way some of the diggers live. It makes this yard look like a palace.”

  She gave him a grateful smile. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “Edwin Matthews is building something of a reputation for himself. You’re not difficult to find.” When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Frances, if you’re not sure what to say to me, you could always offer me a coffee.”

  Her blush deepened, and she felt suddenly as if he was exposing her, coming here. She turned away from him, kneeling down and opening the box to look for coffee, but instead pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. The floorboards creaked behind her, and after a moment she felt the weight of his hand on her neck—thumb on spine, palm on shoulder—and she made a gulping sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “It’s so silly,” she said, “but I haven’t a clue how to make coffee.” She stood up, turning round to face him, clutching the jar of coffee. “I’m hopeless. I can’t even light a fire.”

  “Hasn’t he shown you?” William asked, his eyebrows raised in disapproval.

  She shrugged. “We only arrived yesterday. It probably never occurred to him that I didn’t know how.”

  He looked as though he was going to say something disparaging about Edwin, but thought better of it. He picked up a contraption that stood by the ashes of their fire, made of two tins sealed one on top of the other. She hadn’t noticed it before.

  “You don’t need to light the fire for coffee. That’s what this boiler’s for.”

  He filled it with water from the drum. Then he squatted down in the dust, took a knife from his pocket, and cut shavings from a piece of kindling.

  “Come here, look.” He waited for her to crouch down beside him, stuffing the shavings into the boiler with a handful of coir. He gave her some matches, and she lit one and held it to the coir and watched it catch, the flame almost invisible in the bright afternoon light. He blew a little into the flame, and it strengthened. The kindling began to crackle. She felt his fingers sweep the hair away from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear. It was an affectionate gesture, as though he wanted a better look at her face, but she flinched as if her skin had been burnt. He touched the gold chain at her neck.

  “You’ve been wearing it all this time?”

  “Yes,” she said, moving away from him, embarrassed. Wearing the necklace was as good as saying she still loved him. She sat in the chair and watched while he made coffee. He poured out a cup of the hot, bitter liquid and handed it to her. “It should be better than the last one I made you.”

  She remembered the storm, the two of them braced against the force of it and how close she had felt to him. “Frances, believe it or not, I didn’t come here to tempt you away from your husband.” She had forgotten his confidence. His ability to voice her thoughts, and to say the very thing she would never dare say herself. He was all intimacy, tearing down formalities, talking to her as he had done when she had lain half naked next to him on his bunk. He knew her physically, and she felt the same vulnerability she had done then, made worse by the distance he was establishing between them. There was rejection built into the word “husband.” It was too final.

  “Then why did you come?”

  “Because I thought you might need a friend.” A friend. Of course. What else had she expected? And yet it pricked her pride. He was here not because he wanted to see her, but because he pitied her.

  “I’m not sure your wife will appreciate the difference.” She tried to keep her voice light.

  “You mean you don’t know?” He gave a short laugh. “Frances, I’m not married. Eloise’s father called it off. He found out what a scoundrel I was and told me he didn’t
want anything to do with me. Baier was furious of course, but what could he do?”

  She was astounded. If he hadn’t married Eloise, then everything could have been different. “Why didn’t you write to me?”

  “What was there to say? You were already married. Then I heard Matthews was bringing you here, and I wanted to see you. I needed to make sure you were all right.”

  “I am all right,” she said stiffly.

  “You might not be when your husband starts telling everyone we’re in the midst of a smallpox epidemic.”

  “Are we?”

  William gave a scoffing laugh.

  “Then why would he say it?”

  His face was suddenly serious. “Frances, how well do you know your husband? He has an insatiable appetite for scandal.” He stood up and looked behind the curtain into their bedroom, then glanced over the few books Edwin had piled on a small shelf beside the box. She saw it all through his eyes: the squalid yard, the thin black smoke, the stench from the outhouse. After a moment he gave a frustrated yelp. “What was he thinking, bringing you here? He must be mad, asking you to live like this. Why doesn’t he take you to Cape Town?” His words stung. She realized he had no interest in her staying in Kimberley. Why would he? She had never in her life felt less attractive.

  “William, I am not your responsibility.”

  “No, but I care about you.” There was a brief silence. Then he said, “You should persuade him to leave, if you can.”

  “So you can be rid of me?”

  “No, Frances, because I’m worried about you. Kimberley is a horrible, grubbing place full of people on the make. The sooner you are out of here the better.” He came to stand over her and said with a touch of remorse, “Look, I didn’t want to upset you. I’ll leave now, but you must promise me—if you need help, anything at all, please come and find me.”

  He touched her cheek lightly and walked away, but she called after him. He turned, the afternoon sun catching the tips of his black hair. “Thank you,” she said, and he smiled, walking backwards a few steps while he looked at her, then turned and walked out of the yard.

  Twenty-Seven

  She was devastated. She had expected, even wanted, to see William, but she had imagined it would be in some public place and the impact of it would be diluted by company; that she would do little more than lay eyes on him and go through the motions of a formal conversation. Instead, he had found her alone and in a moment’s glance had unraveled all the resistance she had built up over the long six months of not seeing him.

  She lay down on the bed and shut her eyes, but her mind was full of him. He had spoken to her with such familiarity yet offered nothing more than friendly concern. And he wasn’t married to Eloise Woodhouse after all. That was the hardest thing to register. It was easier to imagine him beholden, like her, to someone he didn’t love, than free to make a life on his own without her.

  It was as if she had signed a contract with him on the Cambrian. By letting him undress her, and letting his body mark out hers, she had given away her rights to herself as an independent being. Her loyalty was all to him. It was hardly rational. In their yard, he had looked as if he scarcely cared about her. There had been no mention of love, and yet his simple presence, the way he had touched her cheek and hinted at their closeness, seemed to be reminding her of the contract between them.

  Edwin came back that evening convinced that the disease was smallpox. He said he had seen two cases; and as the days went by, the number grew.

  “I don’t understand,” Frances said one evening. “Surely these doctors have their reputations to think about.”

  They were sitting at the entrance of the tent on either side of the foldout table, which threatened to overturn itself every time Edwin cut off another hunk of bread. There was a brawl going on at the Digger’s Rest, and they could hear shouts and the smashing of glass. The baby across the yard was crying. Through the darkness, she could see Mangwa’s stripes rippling as he shifted uneasily from foot to foot. It was eight o’clock and already cold enough for the tips of her fingers to be turning numb.

  “The disease is smallpox,” Edwin said, opening a jar of pickle. “It can’t be anything else.”

  “But you said yourself you hadn’t seen cases of pemphigus before.”

  “I’ve looked it up. Pemphigus is extremely rare and not contagious. It would be nothing short of impossible to find so many cases in Kimberley.” He cut a piece of cheese onto each plate, and passed one to her.

  “But the symptoms are the same?” she asked, taking the plate from him and helping herself to pickle.

  “Ostensibly, yes. There is ulceration in both cases, particularly in the mouth. But if you’ve seen smallpox, you don’t miss it a second time. Besides, pemphigus can take years to develop, and it’s rarely fatal.”

  “Then how do they explain the men who are dying?” she asked, beginning to eat. The pickle did a good job of disguising the cheese, which was hard and tasteless.

  “They don’t. The postmortems state death from other causes.”

  “All the same, if you’re not familiar with the disease . . .”

  Edwin didn’t respond, and after a moment Frances said, “Why would Baier even bother covering it up? Wouldn’t it be better to just get on and deal with it?”

  “And risk the consequences of closing down the mine?”

  “Why not? He must be wealthy enough. I thought he owned most of it?”

  “That’s part of the problem. A year ago, the yellow ground, or sand, which they had been mining ran out. They hit blue ground, which was almost impossible to break up. Geologists declared it the end of mining in Kimberley. The market dropped; diggers panicked and sold their claims to anyone foolish enough to buy them. Baier took a huge risk. He started buying up other men’s claims. He showed that if you leave the blue ground to weather in the sun and you water it from time to time as you would a garden, it will start to disintegrate. He brought in gangs of natives who broke up the watered ground with wooden mallets. It crumbled into soft powder. Turns out the blue ground is even richer than the sand.”

  “Which is why he’s the wealthiest man in Kimberley.”

  “Yes, except it’s all bought on credit. He needs results fast, but the blue ground takes years to disintegrate, unless you use machinery to break it up. He’s invested a fortune in importing steam engines to work the mines—mechanical washing plants, drills, trams. He’s even started sinking shafts so they can begin to mine underground. If smallpox is declared, he’s terrified the natives will leave the mines and his foreign investors will pull out. Not to mention the mining companies he has floated on the stock market. He’ll be ruined.”

  Frances considered the implications of what he was saying. After a moment, she said, “You can’t take on Baier. He’s too powerful.”

  Edwin mopped at his plate with the last of his bread, and didn’t look up. “Didn’t you suggest the opposite the last time we had this conversation?”

  “Edwin, don’t do this for my sake. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  He pushed his plate away and looked at her. “Frances, it may amaze you, but not every decision I make revolves around you.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, she spoke in a low, steady voice. “Edwin, please, let’s get out of here. It’s not too late to leave. We could go tonight. Kimberley is not your responsibility. Think what Baier could do to us. You’ll never be able to have a practice of your own, and there’ll be no chance of making a decent living. You said it yourself. He will ruin you utterly.”

  “I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.”

  He walked out to the barrel in the yard and began washing the dishes. When he came back, she stood up and hissed at him, not wanting to be overheard. “Why won’t you at least give yourself a chance?” She threw up her hands. “What kind of life is this? My clothes are infested with lice and there are rats living under our floorboards.” She took his hand and placed it on her head. “Go on
. Feel it. It’s so dry and frizzy I feel like a native, and if I don’t have a new dress soon I’ll be mistaken for a beggar.” He drew his hand away. “I’m hungry, Edwin. I’d like a good, hot meal for once. I’ve forgotten the taste of butter.” She sat down and put her head in her hands. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life like this.”

  “Frances, I can’t change who I am for your sake. Oddly, it was you who proved that to me.”

  She had to stop herself from begging. They would have nothing—no money, no resources, no friends. It would be almost impossible for Edwin to earn money at the Cape with Baier against him. She went to bed, leaving him sitting up by the small fire at the entrance of the tent. She put down her candle, opened her trunk, and lifted out a box as long as her forearm, lined with tissue paper and smelling of tuberose. There was a rustle as she opened the leaves of paper, plunging her hand into deep, velvety cashmere. It was a rug, soft like rabbit fur, woven in a tight herringbone green. Wrapped inside it was a box of English soaps scented with tuberose. William had remembered the perfume she had worn on the Cambrian. The last of it had run out a month ago, and the deep, heady smell brought back memories of London, of her father, and of William.

  The gifts had arrived that morning. She had been planning to send them back, but now, after her argument with Edwin, she decided to keep them. Edwin would never notice. She pulled the cashmere throw into bed with her, wrapping it between her legs to keep her warm. It occurred to her that William’s hands must have touched the fabric. He would have imagined it next to her skin, and this made her feel as if he were watching her and they were sharing something forbidden.

  Some time later Frances was woken. There were voices in the yard, talking urgently. Mangwa nickered in concern, and the curtain glowed as a lamp was lit on the other side. A second later, Edwin was calling her, and she pulled a heavy shawl over her shoulders and walked through to the front of the tent. The body of a native was laid out on the floor. Edwin was kneeling over him, trying to get a response. Another native was stoking the fire and boiling a kettleful of water. He talked rapidly to Edwin in a thick accent.