The teams of horses became entangled, and the poles and traces of both wagons were torn free of their fixings. As the horses galloped away, the fully laden wagon was pitched over the edge of the precipice and into the gorge below.
When the noise and dust subsided, all that remained of the first wagon was a broken wheel that had come to rest in the middle of the track. The wagon’s cargo had spilled from the back as it plunged down the slope, leaving behind a litter of box fragments and flower petals. Somehow the wagon Masson was on had avoided the same fate, but it now lay battered and wrecked on its side, one unbroken wheel still spinning freely.
Masson limped over to a dazed but not badly injured Thunberg and pulled him to his feet.
“You all right?” asked Thunberg.
“Never better,” replied Masson in return, slowly recovering from the shock of the accident, surveying the mess of flowers, spread like wedding day confetti over the side of the hill.
A muffled groan grabbed their attention, pulling them away from site of the wreckage before them and over to the body of the woman driver, barely conscious and half hidden by the wagon’s canvas canopy that lay in shreds about her.
Thunberg bent down and checked her breathing and heartbeat. “She won’t be driving wagons again anytime soon, but she’ll live.”
“Well, at least there’s good news in there somewhere,” said Masson distractedly as something caught his eye. Willmer’s horse stood riderless about fifty yards down the track, shifting nervously and whinnying softly as if unsure of where to go.
Masson walked slowly towards it, making gentle, soothing sounds before taking up the reigns and leading it back to where Thunberg was tending to the woman.
“Well, we can’t do much with just the one horse. Our only hope is to try and grab the third wagon from Schelling or find Pieterszoon’s cart. It can’t be far away,” said Thunberg.
“I don’t fancy our chances against him and his guns,” mused Thunberg.
“It’s worth a try, and even a couple more horses would be better than what we have. But first things first. We need to get away from here and we need to find some shade, somewhere they won’t easily see us. Once they get that third wagon hitched, it won’t take long to get here. Let’s rig a stretcher and then strike off cross-country to the north, further up the river. Hopefully we can find a place for you two to settle down for the night while I go back and try at least to get some more horses and supplies.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Why don’t we just focus on a single life-threatening situation at a time?” Masson smiled and nodded his agreement.
Masson set about building a stretcher out of bits of broken wagon, and Thunberg climbed on the horse and returned along the track to try to collect anything that might be of use from the material they had thrown from the cart. While Masson was building the stretcher, he found two rifles and a box of cartridges under the driver’s seat.
“You’re lucky you only got a tap on the jaw; she could have blown your head off,” joked Thunberg when he returned a few minutes later with one of the tents, some blankets, a waterskin and a bag of provisions.
They hitched up the stretcher and then retreated back down the track. They struck out into the bush and walked in a gentle arc with the intention of doubling back to a point further up river from the Great Place.
When Masson and Thunberg came to lift the woman on to the stretcher, Masson was again taken aback by the fact that she was dressed in a man’s clothes. Her long, dark hair was matted with twigs and dried blood from a nasty gash above her left eye. In spite of the fact that she had almost clubbed him unconscious and then had almost killed him with a wagon, he couldn’t help but think, as she lay there quietly, the fire and fury extinguished momentarily, that her face was completely at odds with the rest of her appearance. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and although he immediately felt guilty for the thought, Constance seemed very far away. This woman, whoever she was, was breathtakingly close.
When he lifted her onto the stretcher, he did so gingerly, afraid to break her.
“You all right?” asked Thunberg, a twinkle in his eye.
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that.”
“And it’s also the second time you haven’t answered. If I didn’t know you any better, I would say that you were looking at her like you were getting ready to draw her.”
“I told you,” Masson replied, “I only draw plants.”
CHAPTER 39
After hours of walking, they descended a steep slope and came to a clump of trees and dense bush that lay at the base of a massive sandstone outcropping.
Masson was astonished to see butterflies for the first time, dancing atop the assegai trees. He took it as a good omen, and so they decided to stop and unhitch the stretcher where they were, carrying it along a game path that took them deeper into the trees. There they hacked away at the low brush and made a clearing large enough to pitch the tent.
Once the tent was set up, they carried the woman inside. “I need to check for broken bones. I’ll have to undress her.”
Masson stood his ground, waiting for Thunberg to tell him what to do. He wasn’t sure whether it was right to be undressing an unconscious woman, but Thunberg was a doctor, after all.
“Ahem,” Thunberg cleared his voice and raised his eyebrows at Masson, his voice slipping into a professional rhythm and tone. “If you could just wait outside, I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Absolutely,” Masson smiled self-consciously and quickly backed out of the tent, but not before his cheeks and neck had flushed a deep crimson.
After a couple of minutes, Thunberg came out of the tent and stood next to Masson, who had built a small fire. “Nothing’s broken. She took a knock to the head, but I don’t think it’s too serious. Keep her covered with the blankets and wake her every hour or so. Try to get her to drink at least a little water. She’ll be thirsty when she comes to, so try to drink as little yourself as you can. I’ll be back as soon as possible with some more food and water, but you should be fine for a day or so with what you have.”
Thunberg continued to give Masson instructions as he got the horse ready, taking one of the rifles and stuffing his pockets with cartridges. “Keep the fire small, just to keep the animals at bay, but make sure you extinguish it before daybreak. We don’t want anyone seeing the smoke.”
As the pair shook hands, Masson surprised Thunberg by holding on with an unexpectedly firm grip. “You will come back, won’t you?”
Thunberg smiled and shook his head. “I have no choice — you know perfectly well that a man alone can’t survive in Africa.”
Without another word, Thunberg mounted Willmer’s horse, waving as he rode off into the dusk.
***
Masson did not sleep. He sat with the rifle, looking into the fire and trying not to think about the mess he was in. From time to time he checked on the woman, making sure that she wasn’t cold and hadn’t thrown off the blankets. Following Thunberg’s instructions, he also tried to get her to drink, gently lifting her head before carefully placing the waterskin to her chapped lips. When she did drink, she did so without opening her eyes, mumbling incoherently.
She continued to talk in her sleep, and although none of it made any sense to Masson, at least it helped to take his mind off the night noises that permeated every inch of the forest.
At one point in the night, she developed a slight fever, and Masson tore off a piece of his shirt to use as a flannel. Washing away the dirt and grime as he dabbed at her face and neck, he tried to soothe skin that was hot to the touch and soon the fever passed and she fell into a deep and untroubled sleep. As Masson watched the gentle rising and falling of her breast beneath the blanket, his jaw ached and served as a reminder that however pretty she might seem asleep, he would do well to be on his guard.
When the sky began to brighten the next morning, Masson extinguished the fire. H
e then opened the bag of provisions that Thunberg had gathered and set to work preparing a breakfast of biscuits and pineapple.
“If only the accommodations were as good as the food.” Masson turned at the sound of the sleepy voice that emerged from the tent. Its tenor was silkily female, but something in the clipped vowels and accent was familiar. She had omitted to put on her boots and stood in front of the tent in her stocking feet, wrapped in her blanket. Her dark, wavy hair had been tied back, and the wound on her forehead was the only blemish on her face.
“You’re English,” Masson said, offering up the fruit.
“And you’re Scottish,” she replied with a smile.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as she began eating.
“Better than I look, I’m sure.” She paused and looked around as if searching for something. “Where’s the wagon? We had better get going if we’re going to make it back to the Cape before Schelling.”
Masson could hardly believe his ears.
“Don’t you remember the accident? It was a miracle we weren’t all killed. Doctor Thunberg has gone to try to get some supplies and a cart, or at least more horses, so that we can get back to the Cape.”
Her brow furrowed as she took in the information, shaking her head. But the shaking changed to nodding as Masson’s words unlocked her memory and the events of the previous day tumbled out all at once. “That’s right, I remember. You and your sidekick were in the back of the wagon. It was because of you that I lost control. If you hadn’t changed the weight of the load, I wouldn’t have misjudged that bend on the trail!”
Masson was at a complete loss for words. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish sucking in water, but no sound came out. “Now hold on just a minute,” Masson finally managed. “We saved you! If anyone has destroyed anything, then it is you, madam. You have managed to single-handedly finish off what Schelling started, ruining any chance I had of getting that flower back to England, and with it my future.”
In the heat of the argument, she had let her blanket fall to the ground. Perhaps it was the intricate green stitching on the fawn-coloured breeches that Masson had somehow missed seeing the day before, or the dark-blue waistcoat that now hung loose and unbuttoned over a once-white starched shirt, but something in Masson’s battered brain clicked.
“The monkey!” he blurted out.
She returned his stare, not backing away for even a moment.
“And then — the angel who gave me back the drawing … when I was fevered … I thought I had imagined it, but I didn’t, did I? That was you, too. You really did give it back to me. You’re Burnette!”
As the full extent of the truth began to condense in Masson’s mind, he could sense the cogs and levers of his imagination spring into action as if wound up tight and then suddenly released. “The sketch — you saw it. You knew what the flower looked like. Schelling had everything he needed, didn’t he?”
He looked up and saw that the defiance in her eyes had not diminished, but burned even brighter than before. He wasn’t sure what made him more angry — her treachery or her blatant lack of remorse. Her continued silence only fuelled his fury and there, in a wood in the middle of Africa, face to face with the one person who, even more than Schelling, was responsible for the hardships he had been forced to ensure, he finally found a vent for all the anguish and frustration that had built up inside.
“Did you know that after they stole my journal, they left me to die out there? Was that your idea, too?”
This time she blinked. Suddenly, her look was less certain.
“What about the fire? What kind of a botanist would countenance such a blatant act of vandalism? Are you even a botanist, or is that also just part of the charade, along with the clothes? What are you getting out of all this? What did Schelling promise you that would make you sink so low?”
Her chin began to drop and tears began to appear in the corners of her eyes as Masson stormed forward and brought his face inches away from hers. Her eyes were definitely wet, but even with the threat of his physical presence, there was still no fear.
He realised he had gone too far. As the first tear escaped, there was not even enough time for it to streak down her cheek before she wiped it away with a hand that was bunched up into a fist.
“Do you think that you’re the only one with something to lose in all this?” she screamed back at him.
Her tears were flowing freely now, but he couldn’t tell if they were tears of shame, sadness, fury or a combination of the three. The more they came, the angrier it made her and Masson saw that she was opening and closing her hands, bunching her fists as if ready for a brawl. He remembered how she had clubbed him with the whip and suddenly wondered if it might not be better to give her a little space.
But as he backed away, she followed, fists still clenched. “You think you know everything, but you don’t understand anything. All you see is yourself at the centre of your own tiny world.”
As he backed away from her, he tripped and fell squarely on his behind. He brought up his arms to cover his face as she leaped forward, raining blows down upon him. Her fists were small and she had seemed fragile, but her spirit was so intense that he sensed that she would rather break every bone in both her hands before she would stop the barrage.
Confused and irate, he had been so blinded by his own frustration and anger that he had failed to see that hers was no less deep.
She continued to hammer away at him, trying to find a way through his defences. Afraid that she would really hurt him or herself, he dropped his arms. Although she landed a few blows on his chest, he managed to pull her towards him and smother her in a bear hug.
At first, this made her fight even harder as she thrashed against the confinement of his embrace. But eventually, either through resignation or exhaustion, her rage gave way to deep, gasping sobs.
When at last she stopped crying, he opened his arms. She peeled herself away from him and sat in the grass beneath the assegai trees with her head in her hands. After a while, she raised her head and turned her face to him. She looked drained and tired, but the steely glint in her eyes told him that she was far from broken.
“My name is Lady Jane Sommerton,” she said slowly. “And I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t been foolish enough to fall in love with Sir Joseph Banks.”
CHAPTER 40
Lady Jane Sommerton disappeared back into the tent, closing the flap behind her. At first Masson thought that she had changed her mind and decided to be alone, but she soon reappeared wearing her boots and her coat, all traces of the tears wiped from her face.
Masson had taken a seat against the trunk of an assegai tree. After laying out the blanket on the stubby grass, she sat down opposite him, with only the remains of the dead fire between them.
She took a deep breath and half-started to say something, as if dipping her toes to test the temperature of the water. Finding the water frigid, she pulled back and took a deep breath before launching herself forward, eyes closed, waiting for the shock. “I was the first person that Joseph showed the sketch to, or so he told me. We met at one of those ridiculous soirees where women are either there to snare a husband or to escape from the one they already have, whilst the men just drink. Most times they don’t have the first clue as to why they’re there.
“I had escaped to my usual refuge, an herb garden that I had planted in the grounds of my parent’s home. It was far enough away that I could escape the tedium of polite conversation, but close enough that I could not be accused of being anti-social.
“Banks appeared and seemed genuinely impressed by the range of species that I had managed to plant, congratulating me on the degree to which they had flourished. When I explained to him that I had overseen not just the planting of the herb garden but of the entire estate, he had the good grace to apologise for his patronising condescension and insisted that I give him a tour. I can see now that it was all bluster and show, but back then it was a fine thing to have a man
take interest in the things that fascinated me.
“We soon became friends, and we often compared herbariums and argued about Linnaeus or Miller. Although it occurred to me that as a young, single woman, being on friendly terms with one of the most eligible bachelors in England carried its own weight of expectation, I ignored both my instincts and the mountain of advice my poor mother tried to give me. Instead, I decided that our relationship was different, that it was based on science, not emotion, and that it was a shared interest in plants that welded our friendship rather than anything so common as mutual infatuation.
“Of course, the inevitable happened, and we fell into that wretched swooning state that I had so despised seeing in all of my friends: sending saccharine letters to each other consisting of complicated language that tried so desperately to make believe that our love was on a higher plane, when in fact it was so dreadfully ordinary. Soon our botanising trips to gardens across the country became little more than a smokescreen for weekend trysts that could be explained away with a gloss of respectability.
“When he didn’t ask me to marry him, I convinced myself that there was no cause for concern. I was against the idea, anyway, not least because in my own mind I saw marriage as society’s way of putting a woman in her place. I had never seen any good come of it and was convinced that Joseph and I were destined for greater things.
“Even when I saw the announcement of his marriage in the papers, I managed to blind myself to reality. He had warned me about it, saying that it was little more than a business transaction for the good of his family and his fortune. He told me he had been forced to accept and that it would not change things between us.
“To prove it, he told me about his plans for the Resolution. He would be making a second voyage around the world, but this time, he wanted me to go with him. We even visited the docks, where he showed me the changes that were being made to the ship, describing the extra deck that was being added so that we would have our own suite of apartments.
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