by M. M. Kaye
Zanzibar licked its wounds and counted its dead, and according to its several faiths gave thanks to Allah and a variety of gods and demons for deliverance. Life began to return to normal, and parents, grandparents and relatives who had brought children to The Dolphins’ House claimed them again, and the rooms began to empty.
“What are we going to do with the ones who haven’t anyone at all, and whom no one wants?” asked Olivia, watching Mustapha Ali close the front door on a gaunt woman who had just claimed two small children. (They were, she had said, the orphaned sons of her only sister who had died with her husband and his family in the epidemic, and she had snatched them away as though she feared they would be kept from her.)
“Keep them here,” said Hero. “We could start a school and teach them useful crafts, so that when they grow up they will be able to support themselves.”
Thérèse looked at her scornfully, but with affection and a certain envy for that capacity to see things as simple and right when they were in reality difficult and very complicated, and often impossible to resolve. “Myself, I do not think there will be any left,” said Thérèse.
“But there are. There must be! Lots of them lost everyone, and no one even knows who they belonged to.”
“That is true. But I think you will find that they will all be claimed.”
“I don’t understand?”
Thérèse’s smile was a little wry. “No, chérie. That is plain. But there are now many people who have lost sons and daughters and grandchildren, and have no one to care for them and work for them when they are old. There are also others who need slaves. These will come here, as that woman has done, saying “This one is the child of my brother who is dead, and I am now his only relative and will take care of hun.” And who is to say that it is true—or false?”
“But that’s terrible!” Hero’s eyes were wide with horror. “We can’t let them do that. We must stop her!”
She turned as though she would run after the woman who had just left, and Thérèse caught her arm and pulled her back. “No, Hero. That one at least spoke truth, for the children knew her and went with her gladly.”
“Why, yes, I’d forgotten that. Oh what a fright you gave me! But after this we must insist on proof.”
“You will not get it How can they produce proof? Some perhaps, but only a few. And if even one finds that a child is withheld, they will screech that you are plotting to steal it yourself, and raise a tumult against us all. It is true what I tell you! Already there have been stories. Did you not see how that woman looked at us? and how she snatched at the children and left in great haste? They were willing to let you keep and feed all the children you could while the cholera raged, but now it is over they will behave as though it is this house that has the plague and they who must rescue the little ones from it You will see!—Bon gré, mal gré!”
“I shall insist on proof,” said Hero stubbornly.
But she had not done so. Dr Kealey and Colonel Edwards, Batty, Ralub and Dahili had all advised her against it, for they too had heard the whispers in the bazaars, and they knew the East; and Zanzibar.
Rory had been her last hope, for he had supported her against Uncle Nat and Clay and allowed her to fill his house with homeless children, and but for him none of this could have happened. But he too had sided with the others: “They’re right,” said Rory, “and you’re going to have to accept it whether you like it or not At least you know that no child will be turned out to starve. They’ll have homes—of a sort—and food and a roof over their heads. And thanks to you and the others, they are alive. You’ll have to be content with that.”
“I didn’t think you’d be afraid of a lot of superstitious natives,” said Hero bitterly.
“Didn’t you? Well, you were wrong. I am. I have no desire to have my house stormed by a mob of hysterical citizens who have persuaded themselves that you are murdering babies in order to melt down their fat to use in some form of Western magic, or that I am castrating small boys in order to ship them to Arabia to sell as eunuchs.”
He saw the white shock on Hero’s face, and laughed.
“It astonishes me,” said Rory, “that after all you’ve been through and all you’ve seen, you are still capable of being shocked by a plain statement of fact. Do you mean to say that in all your researches into the iniquities of the slave trade, you never came across the information that hundreds of boys are made into eunuchs every year, to be sold as such? Or that thousands of little girls are bought by jaded old men who have a taste for youth? I suppose such matters are considered too crude to be mentioned before ladies. But they’re true all the same, and the sooner you realize it, the sooner you’ll come around to realizing that the population of Zanzibar is not merely being superstitious when it begins to wonder what I intend to do with a profitable houseful of small children.”
Hero said in a choked voice: “Did you…did you ever?”
“No. I have my limitations, and they do not include trafficking in children. But Zanzibar wouldn’t know that—or care. They know I’ve run slaves, and that’s enough. I’m sorry. Hero, but you’re going to have to disband your: orphanage and that’s all there is to it Don’t take it too hard. You did your best.”
“I ‘did what I had to do,’” said Hero; but not as though she were speaking to him.
She had not thought of old Biddy Jason’s prophecy for a long time, and now suddenly it came into her head again, and the familiar words repeated themselves for the hundredth time…or the thousandth—
‘You’ll have a hand in helping a power of folk to die, and a sight more to live…and you’ll get hard words for the one and no thanks for the other…’ It had all come true after all. And it was Rory, and not Clayton, who was the one who had helped her to do both…
If Rory had not sold a cargo of rifles, and she had not helped to smuggle them into Beit-el-Tani, there might never have been a battle at Marseilles.
And if he had not offered her asylum, she could not have saved the children. There was only the gold…
Rory said: “What are you thinking of?”
Hero returned to the present with a start, flushed and said: “Nothing,” and went away to help Dahili lay out mattresses to air in the sun.
40
Thérèse had gone back to her own home near the French Consulate.
“There is nothing more for me to do here, and my husband complains that his digestion suffers, for the cook—est comme une vâche unless one supervises him!” said Thérèse.
She had invited Hero to stay with her, but Hero had refused on the grounds that Olivia and Millicent Kealey had both issued similar invitations, and she had promised to accept one of those as soon as the future of the remaining children had been decided.
“It will be Millicent, then,” said Thérèse. “For Olivia cannot take you upon her honeymoon. No bridegroom would permit it! You had better come to me, for Milly is a woman with the heart of gold and all else of a dullness insupportable. But I will not press you. The offer remains.”
She kissed Hero and left, and the house seemed a great deal emptier without her.
Olivia stayed; though more for the sake of propriety than for any other reason, for there was little to do and that little was adequately attended to by the women of the household. But there had been no word as yet from Nathaniel Hollis, and since Hero made no move to leave The Dolphins’ House, she could hardly be left there unchaperoned.
“But you will have to leave some time,” said Olivia. “Are you sure you would not rather come back with me now? Hubert says he would be only too delighted, and you could help me with my trousseau. Not that one can get much here, but George says that we can go shopping for anything we need at Cape Town, and we are going home via Paris—he is so good to me. Oh, Hero, I am so happy!”
“You deserve to be,” said Hero; who privately considered George Edwards to be unendurably dull and could not imagine how anyone—even a widow in her thirties!—could possibly contemplate h
aving to live with him for the rest of her life.
But Olivia went about in a daze of rapture, while Colonel Edwards became visibly younger and less hidebound every day, and patently considered himself unbelievably lucky to have found, so late in life, both love and a woman as admirable in every way as his lost Lucy.
There were times when the sight of their happiness made Hero feel lonely and restless and acutely dissatisfied with life, and listening to Olivia’s glowing plans for the future, her own future seemed to stretch in front of her like a dull road that led nowhere. It was at these times that she took refuge in feverish activity; inspecting the kitchen quarter to make sure that it was being kept clean and that Ifabi had not forgotten to boil the children’s milk, or worrying Jumah to step up the campaign against flies and see to the mending of the broken shutters. But now only five little orphans remained, and as these had already been absorbed into the household there was no longer any real work for her to do: or any reason for her to stay. She knew that she must go. If not tomorrow, then the next day. Or next week. But it would have to be soon, for there were foreign ships in the harbour again, and one of them had brought mail from the Cape and another letters from Aden, and soon the women and children who had left on the Daffodil would be back—and so would the Norah Crayne, But neither Cressy nor Aunt Abby would be returning. Or Dan Larrimore either.
The mail had brought news that reached Hero through Olivia, who had heard it from George Edwards who had been told it by Nathaniel Hollis. Dan’s father had died of a stroke, and a letter telling of his death, together with one granting his son a year’s leave of absence to settle his affairs, had arrived at the Cape only two days after the Daffodil had docked there.
There had been a ship sailing for England within the week, and Dan and Cressy had pleaded to be allowed to many immediately so that she might go with him. Aunt Abby had remained adamant for three whole days, and then finally given way to their entreaties; so Cressy was now Lady Larrimore, and if not already in England would be there shortly. And as there seemed little point in Aunt Abby making the long voyage back to Zanzibar only to leave again on the Norah Crayne she had elected to stay where she was and await the arrival of Nat and Clay and dear Hero at the Cape, from where they could all take passage on an East-Indiaman or one of the new steamships of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and proceed to England for a short stay with the newly married pair before returning to Boston.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” sighed Olivia, her eyes brimming with sentimental tears. “Dear, dear Cressy! I am sure she will be truly happy. And I must tell you—George has heard that he is to go as District Commissioner to Lunjore, in India, and can take long leave before taking up the appointment. So we too shall be sailing on the Norah Crayne, because his replacement will be arriving next week. We thought at first that we might be married on board by that nice Captain Fullbright, but now we think we shall wait until we reach Cape Town and have a proper church wedding. Hubert is accompanying us so that he can escort Jane and the children back here, and he will give me away, and you of course, dearest Hero, must be my bridesmaid. Unless you are married first, and then I will be yours, for I am sure you will make it up with Clayton and everything will come right for you.”
Olivia was so happy that she wanted everyone else to be equally happy, and it disturbed her to think that the breach between Hero and her betrothed was still unbridged, and that Nathaniel Hollis showed no sign of relenting toward his niece. She urged George Edwards to speak to Mr Hollis on Hero’s behalf, and though the Colonel was strongly averse to interfering in other people’s private affairs he had, in the end, reluctantly done so: and with gratifying results.
Uncle Nat, who had never yet been known to go back on his word, swallowed his pride and sent to tell his niece that he would like to see her. Though even then he would not come himself to The Dolphins’ House and he had not written, but only sent a verbal message by Colonel Edwards.
“I hope you will go, my dear,” said Colonel Edwards, who had developed a fatherly affection for this girl whom he had once considered to be both tiresome and unwomanly. And he had added, somewhat unexpectedly: “Don’t be too hard on him.”
Hero imagined that he referred to Uncle Nat, but George Edwards had been thinking of Clayton. And it was Clayton and not Uncle Nat who awaited her in the drawing-room at the Consulate.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come for me,” admitted Clay, “and I wanted to see you alone, and not in Frost’s house where there would have been a crowd of people to distract you. Besides, I thought they might not let me in.”
She had actually not recognized him for a moment and thought that it was some stranger who stood there, for his broken nose altered his Byronic good looks in a startling fashion, though the effect was not unpleasing. He was still a handsome man and always would be; but the broken nose added character to a face which had previously lacked it.
He had changed too, in other ways; for no one who had lived through the terrible holocaust of the last two and a half months had been im-affected by it. For better or worse the horror of those weeks; the sights and sounds, the sickening, inescapable stench and the fear; had changed them all.
“I’ve been thinking—” said Clay.
He had thought to some purpose, and now, once again, he asked Hero to marry him. Not for any of the reasons that had seemed good to him before, but only if she herself felt in need of a refuge and protection, and because he sincerely wished to offer her both.
“I reckon I’m not much of a fellow,” admitted Clay ruefully, “and I know darned well you could do a whole heap better for yourself. I’ve done a lot of things—and thought plenty more—that were pretty low-down and that I’m sorry for. But if you feel you could marry me after all, I’d do my damnedest to make you happy. It would be a real privilege to do so. I mean that, Hero. I truly mean it.”
“I know,” murmured Hero; because there was something in his eyes and face and his voice that had never been there before, and that she recognized as sincerity. She wondered why she should never have noticed its absence before, and supposed that she must be growing up. Which was a humbling thought, for she had prided herself on being adult from the age of fifteen.
Looking soberly at Clay she realized that he too had been young and careless, but that his youth had died in the epidemic as surely and almost as painfully as any of the victims it had claimed. Yet she did not believe that he had changed very much.
There were two people in Clay. His wild, dissolute father and his humdrum, home-loving mother. The first had had its fling, and it was always possible that the other might take over, and that one day Aunt Abby’s son would become one of those men who, while liking to boast that they were gay dogs in their day, look back on their own escapades as mere boyish devilry, and conveniently forgetting that they ever strayed into forbidden territory, loudly deplore the immorality and dishonesty of the rising generation. Yet even then she doubted if he would ever be able to resist temptation, whether it came in the form of easy money or women.
Clayton said urgently, breaking the long silence: “I’d be good to you, Hero. And if—if there is a child, his child, I swear I’ll try and care for it as much as if it were my own. Because it will be yours. And because it was my fault, all of it. If I hadn’t…But there’s no sense in going over all that again. I just want you to know that I know I was responsible, and that I’ll do everything I can to make up for it.”
But there was not going to be a child and now was the time to tell him so. Only all at once it was unimportant, and she said instead: “Do you love me, Clay?”
“Why, sure. What I mean is, well I’m—”
But Hero had seen the answer to that question in his face before he spoke, and she laid a hand on his arm, checking him, and said quickly: “You don’t have to say anything. Clay. I shouldn’t have asked you that, because I know that you don’t; I guess I’ve always known. Not in the—in the way I mean it And without that, none o
f the rest is enough.”
“I don’t know how you mean it But I’m very fond of you, and I’d do my best to make up to you for all you’ve been through. And at least you’d be safe. There won’t be any talk, because as my wife…”
But Hero was not listening to him any more. She was discovering with amazement that she did not want to be safe: that she did not care how many people talked or did not talk—
She said hurriedly, cutting across something that Clay was saying about ‘respect and devotion.’ “I’m very grateful to you, Clay, and I’m sure you would be good to me. If I loved you, I’d take advantage of you and say ‘Yes,’ which would be mean of me, because one day you would meet someone you could truly love, and find yourself tied to me: and never forgive me—or yourself. But I don’t love you, so I can’t do it. And I’m not going to have a child, so you don’t have to worry about me.”
“You’re in love with him!” said Clay abruptly.
Hero stared at him without replying, and was suddenly very still. It was a totally unexpected statement and one that presented her with an answer to something that, curiously enough, she had never even thought of asking herself. Perhaps because it was so patently impossible. Faced with it now, her instinct was still to reject it immediately and with anger. But she did not do so. She considered it instead for a long while and in silence, and when at last she spoke there was astonishment in her voice, and an odd note of wonder:
“Yes,” said Hero slowly. “Yes, I guess I am.”
Clay said harshly: “You can’t possibly marry him!”
“I know.”
“Well, thank God you’ve got that much sense! Has he asked you to?”
Hero shook her head, and Clay said: “No, I don’t imagine he would. He must have some sense of fitness! And in any case he’ll be taken off to stand trial as soon as the Cormorant gets in, and if he doesn’t swing he’ll get ten years—if not twenty!”