The Fever Tree

by Jennifer McVeigh

  She blushed, guiltily remembering the conversation between her and William, him holding her in his lap, his kisses, and her declaration of love. Then she rallied. After all, it wasn’t entirely her fault. “You knew when you asked my uncle for my hand in marriage that I wasn’t willing. You knew that I would be forced to say yes. Yet you asked for it anyway. You lured me into it, and you shouldn’t blame me now if it hasn’t been all you hoped it would be. I wasn’t given a choice.”

  “Neither was I.”

  She looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “Frances.” He said her name almost tenderly, affectionately. “You are an intelligent girl, but the world is a more complex place than you have ever believed it to be. I can’t protect you from it, as your father did.” He looked at her for a moment, as if expecting her to grasp what he was about to say. “Has it never crossed your mind that your uncle may have written to me first?”

  “Why would he have written to you?” Some truth was nagging at her, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “He called on my debt to your father’s charity.” Still it wasn’t clear, though she felt the edges of its awfulness. “He asked me to take you off his hands.”

  She looked at him in confusion. The whole prism through which she viewed herself and him was changing, as if she were seeing him through the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope.

  “But you wanted to marry me. You loved me,” she said, as if it were an incontrovertible fact. She thought back to their conversations in London. “You may not love me now, but I know you did then. You asked to marry me before my father died.”

  “I did,” he said, as if it changed nothing, and she remembered finding her father with him that night in the drawing room, when he had been unwell. What had her father said to him? Had he known then about the crisis with Northern Pacific?

  “Your father asked me to make sure you were looked after. I think he thought it would be better if you married me than went to live with one of your aunts.” He passed his hands over his face. “Of course, it was impractical for me to bring you here, and I knew you would find it hard. I tried my best not to ask too much of you.”

  Her world was breaking into fragments. The sense had been drained out of things. Edwin wasn’t at all the person she had thought he was. She had made him up, and he had gone along with her fiction. Why? Because he had wanted her to come to an understanding of her own accord. Because he had thought she would see things as they were, if she was given enough time.

  “Frances.” Edwin was talking to her. Every part of his face seemed crystal clear to her now, as if she were seeing it for the first time. The sharp cheekbones, the blond hair pushed back from the bruising that ran down one side of his face, and his clear, gray eyes, which looked at her as if he knew her better than she knew herself. She was watching him but couldn’t focus on his words. She kept thinking, I haven’t known you at all. You are a stranger to me.

  “I have found someone to fund a hospital to manage the epidemic. I will be sleeping there from now on. They need me around the clock—at least until I can get government support for the project.” He picked up the envelope and handed it to her. “Here is a letter for you to bring to Rietfontein. Mevrouw Reitz will take you in for a fee.” Things were moving too fast. It was as if there was some invisible line beyond which their marriage ceased to exist, and she had unknowingly crossed it. She needed a chance to catch up with the truth, but he was already standing up. “You may be relieved to know that I have no wish to see you for some time. I shall be in Kimberley for at least six months. When it is over here, I will come to Rietfontein and we will discuss the future.” He had it all planned out. He was banishing her. He put his diary into his canvas knapsack, and she realized he had already packed his things. She hadn’t noticed before that his pile of books was gone from the shelf and his two bags were lined up at the entrance of the tent.

  “I won’t be going to Rietfontein,” she said, standing in front of him, trying to grasp control of the situation. “William has asked me to go to Johannesburg with him.”

  Edwin didn’t even flinch. She thought she might see a flicker of pain cross his face, but there was nothing except perhaps disappointment. He sighed. “It is no longer my duty to protect you either from others or from yourself. Presumably you know what kind of man he is?” She had wanted to push him into anger, but he was talking to her as if he were a disinterested party, with just a touch of pity.

  “I love him,” she said with force, as if to admit no doubt.

  “Then you’re a fool,” he said, more in dismay than anger.

  “You have always treated me like a child!” she cried.

  “Frances, you have always treated yourself like a child.”

  “You’re jealous,” she said, angry now. “He may not be as moral as you, but he is more human.”

  “The man who died here,” Edwin said. “He was under their employment.”

  “And? It was an accident!” she said, her voice seething.

  Edwin shook himself as if to throw off the conversation, swung his knapsack over one shoulder, and picked up his bags.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “To the hospital. I am late already, and was only waiting for you to come home. I have asked Tom to watch over the tent this evening.” He nodded to the askari in the yard. “I trust him. Tomorrow you should pack up your things and leave.” He put a few banknotes down on the table. “If you decide to go to Rietfontein, I will forward what money I can.” He walked out of the yard without a backward glance.

  • • •

  WHEN HE WAS GONE, she sat down, her head buzzing. Her future was mapping itself out without her having made a decision one way or another. She was too wound up to try to sleep. She brought Mangwa closer to the entrance of the tent, tethering him on a long lead rope. The shape of him in the dark was reassuring. He was company of sorts. He stood, resting one hind leg, until at some point in the night he turned a circle and lay down at her feet with his neck outstretched in the dust. Occasionally, the askari shifted his weight and spat into the dirt. She sat huddled under two blankets until dawn broke, cold and icy. Mangwa rose instinctively in the pale light and shook himself. She fed him a few handfuls of oats and left.

  She went to find Mariella to get her advice. She needed her sanction before she went to William. Two men were standing outside the Fairleys’ room in quiet conversation. They looked up when she approached. One of the men she recognized as George Fairley. His face was drawn into tight lines of worry. The other, dressed in a grubby flannel suit, tilted his hat at her and gave her a crooked smile. It was Dr. Robinson. She could smell the whiskey on him from ten feet away.

  “I am worried, Sir,” George said, after greeting Frances. “She doesn’t look well.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Fairley, that there is nothing to be concerned about. Pemphigus often looks worse than it is. She should make a full recovery. Of course, there is the child to be concerned about, but I have every hope that she will carry it.”

  “Is there any risk of contagion?” Frances asked him.

  “No. There is no reason why you shouldn’t see her.” The doctor smiled generously at them both. “Now, Mr. Fairley, we said last time that you needn’t pay me right away. Perhaps we could settle now?”

  George took the doctor a little to one side. Frances heard him say, “If you could just wait until Friday, I’ll have cash then.”

  “It’s all in stocks, is it?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes,” George admitted. “I can show you the receipts.” There was a rustling of paper.

  “I’m afraid receipts are one thing and ready money is another.”

  “I can’t get at it now,” George said, with withering self-reproach. “The market’s taken a bit of a dip.”

  “We’ll leave it for today, but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to see her again unless I can expect to be paid. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Can I see her?” Frances asked,
when the doctor was gone.

  George ushered her into the bedroom.

  Mariella lay on her side, the sheet pulled in around the swelling of the baby. Her face and the backs of her hands were covered in a rash of flat, red spots. Some of those on her cheeks had swollen into white sacs, like the bodies of ticks. She opened her eyes when she heard them come in, and smiled, and Frances saw that her lips were covered in ulcers.

  “I feel better than I did.” She moved her mouth delicately around the words. “The fever, at least, has gone.”

  “How long have you been ill?” Frances asked, smoothing Mariella’s hair out of her eyes. It had sealed itself in dark, wet lines against her face. She had only ever seen it teased into glossy ringlets, and it was a shock to see it lying flat and lank on the pillow. It gave her the appearance of an overgrown baby.

  “A few days. The doctor says I will be all right.”

  “Of course you will,” Frances said, but she was concerned. The rash itself didn’t look as bad as the pictures she had seen of smallpox, but she didn’t trust Dr. Robinson.

  “Have you considered the possibility that it might be smallpox?” she asked George when they were outside.

  He shook his head. “How can it be?” She remembered the vaccination office in Cape Town. Could you catch smallpox if you had been vaccinated? She remembered Edwin saying something about it corrupting in the heat.

  “Initially, I thought it might be,” he was saying, “but Dr. Robinson ruled out the possibility. He was very reassuring. He said the symptoms seemed similar but the disease would soon pass of its own accord. And, so far, he seems to be right. The fever has gone, and she is already feeling a little better.”

  “I think you should get a second opinion. Send for my husband. He will set your mind at rest.” She grasped his hand. “Promise me you’ll do it?”

  He nodded, taking his hand back and smiling to reassure her. “Of course.”

  • • •

  SHE WENT TO WILLIAM THEN. It was late morning by the time she knocked at his door, and his boy let her in. She sat in the armchair and waited, trying not to rehearse what she would say because every time she got to the part where she asked him if she could stay, her heart started thudding uncontrollably. Would he really be happy to see her when he realized she had nowhere else to go? His proposal had been made on the spur of the moment. He might have changed his mind. Periodically, she heard voices outside, but they always passed by. She waited all day, watching the sun shift across the floor until it had slipped behind the house and the windows grew dark. The boy seemed to have forgotten her. He didn’t draw the curtains or light the fire. It was very quiet, and evening drew on. When it got to nine o’clock, she was hungry and anxious and had almost given up hope of him coming home. Perhaps he had already left for Johannesburg.

  Then she heard voices outside. She recognized William’s deep laugh. The door was thrown open, and it crashed against the wall. In walked Leger, followed by William. It took a moment for them to see her in the darkness. Leger spotted her first and said quietly, “Hey, hey, look what the cat dragged in.”

  She stood up awkwardly, and saw William turn and lock eyes with her. She wanted Leger to be gone and for it just to be the two of them and for him to say he was glad she had come.

  Leger swung himself down in the chair opposite hers, grinning at her and stuffing his pipe.

  William took her hand without speaking and led her through a door on the far side of the room. He lit a candle. There was a simple double bed, and he sat her down on it.

  “Are you here to stay?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “If you’ll let me,” she said softly.

  He grinned at her wolfishly. “I’ll let you.” Then he said, “Leger and I have some business to settle. You’d best wait here.”

  She waited a few moments, sitting stiffly on the bed, listening to the murmur of their voices. When it was clear he wasn’t coming through any time soon, she unlaced her boots and lay back on the deep feather pillows at the head of the bed. She blew out the candle. Moonlight filtered through the small window. If only Leger hadn’t been here. She disliked the way he looked at her, as if he knew what she was. It made her feel cheap and worthless. There was a plaid woolen blanket at the end of the bed, and she pulled it over her knees. She woke some time later, groggy with sleep and still alone in the room. There were footsteps on the boards in the sitting room, and the low voice of a native. When he had gone, she heard Leger laughing, then shortly afterwards he left as well.

  The bedroom door opened and William came in, without a lamp. She saw the dark bulk of him in the dark. He sat down on the bed. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

  He watched her, nudging the hair off her forehead with the tips of his fingers. Her blood beat high and fast in her throat. When he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Are you glad?”

  “Glad?” He looked at her for a moment then leant forward and kissed her. The smell of wood smoke was caught in the folds of his shirt. His tongue flickered across her upper lip. Then he pulled back. “Shouldn’t you have changed for bed?”

  “I wasn’t sure if I would be staying. All my things are still in the tent.”

  “Still”—he said, looking at her. She could just make out his eyes in the dark—“it’s no excuse for not undressing.” He tipped her chin up with one finger and began undoing the high collar of her black bodice, easing open the buttons from her throat down to the last one at her waist. She tried to kiss him when he had finished, but he shook his head then undid the buttons at each sleeve and drew her arms through, letting the bodice drop back onto the bed. His fingers trailed along the line of her collarbone until they found the eyes at the top of her corset. He unhooked them one by one then slipped her out of it. With each layer he took off came the residues of her old life. He stood her up, and she raised her arms like a child and let him slide her chemise over her head, shivering as the cotton brushed over her breasts. She was glad that there was little light. He wouldn’t see the graying fabric, nor—when he got to them—her torn flannel petticoats. He untied her skirts and stepped her out of them. Finally, he pulled down her drawers until she stood completely naked in front of him. Then he kissed her delicately, searchingly, and drew her down onto the bed.

  • • •

  THEY LAY TOGETHER in a tangled knot of sheets. William lit a candle and produced a small stone from his hand. He held it up to the light. It was about the size of a large pearl, with uneven edges. He unfurled one of her hands and pressed the stone into her palm. “For you,” he said, smiling at her. “Not quite a ring, but the sentiment is the same.”

  She felt uncomfortable taking it, lying there naked next to him. It was as if he was paying her for what they had just done. And then she realized that of course this was the way it was going to be: her always feeling indebted to him, doubting him, and worrying that she had to rely on him for everything. She handed it back to him, and he laughed, propping himself up on one elbow.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want it.”

  “What do you want then, Frances?”

  She thought for a moment. “Anything?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  She smiled. “Something to eat?”

  He gave a roar of laughter. “You’ve not had supper?”

  “Nor lunch.”

  “How long were you waiting for me?”

  “Most of the day.”

  He stalked naked to the bedroom door, opened it, and bellowed to his boy.

  “What happened with Matthews?” he asked, coming back into the room.

  She shrugged. She didn’t want to have to explain about the hospital. “He let me go.”

  The boy knocked on the door, and William got up and took the tray from him. There was a tureen of soup and a loaf of bread. He sat on the floor, pulling her down next to him, along with a heap of sheets, so she was propped up against the bed with her hair falling abou
t her knees. She ate hungrily. The soup was mulligatawny, thick and hot with a deep spiciness, and the butter dripped off the bread down her fingers. She was starving and ate with intent, aware of him watching her closely. He took the tray away before she was finished.

  “You can have the rest later,” he said, burying his head in her neck, under her hair. He groaned. “I can’t bear to look at you without touching you.” She smelt the sweet sweat of him, and the salty heat of the chillies was in her mouth. The sheets felt cool and strange, and his hands were warm against her skin. His fingers began exploring her again, touching the soft, hidden places of her body, pulling at the sheet until it fell down around her waist, and she laughed, turning to get away from him, but he pinned her down, kissing her soft belly. His lips moved down between her thighs, his beard brushing against the smoothness of her skin until his tongue, like the flick of a knife, unlocked a sudden, sweet pleasure inside her.

  The next morning she woke before he did and wriggled her arm out from under his chest. She wanted to get dressed before he woke up, but he snatched at her hand as she was slipping out of bed and pulled her back down again. “Wait,” he said, and the next minute the door had opened. She pulled the sheets over her head, but her hair spilled out from under them. The boy left tea, hot toast, and muffins. When he was gone, William pulled back the sheet and grinned at her. Sunlight streamed between gaps in the curtains. She smiled shyly at him.

  “What do you call him, the boy?” she asked.

  “Halfwit.”

  She laughed, unsure. “You’re not serious?”

  “Perfectly.” He smiled at her disapproval. “What? There’s too little humor in Kimberley. And besides, it’s not as if he knows what it means.”

  “But still . . .” she said, frowning in distaste.

  “Frances, one thing you should know about me is I don’t do disapproval. I don’t judge others, and in return I don’t expect to be judged. Now,” he said, giving her a gentle push, “I’m desperate for a cup of tea.” She tried to take the sheet with her, but he pulled at a corner of it, and she was left standing naked. He smiled at her, watching her pad across the room. She could feel her breasts swinging and her hair shifting across her back. She blushed when she bent down to place a cup beside his bed. He pushed open the sheets and took her in against the warmth of his body, curling her into him.