The Parasol Flower

by Quevillon, Karen;

  The colonel clears his throat noisily.

  “What…were you doing there?” she mumbles.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” His hand is out for the photograph. “Hannah.” Reluctantly she obeys, giving it back to him. “Dr. Peterborough is conducting scientific research involving women. Women of the dark races, here, in Malaya. He is documenting them scientifically. Some time ago, he sought assistance from the Residency.”

  “Assistance from you and James.”

  “I had no choice but to be involved.”

  All of these weeks at Idlewyld, she’s seen Charles in passing and made nice to him. She’s fretted to Eva about the long hours her husband keeps. Admired his dedication. Poor man, cooped up in that cabin! “And if you were Resident, George—because you will be Resident one day, so you tell me—you would have chosen to do things differently, I suppose?” She is in no mood for mercy.

  The colonel looks like he wants to climb into his cup of tea and dissolve. “Believe me, I was never told any of the details. Finch said Peterborough would be interviewing the women.”

  She makes a disgusted noise.

  “I know, I didn’t believe that either. But I didn’t know what to think. Certainly not that he’d be measuring them and…and mapping them and…”

  “Shaving them!” she exclaims, then feels her cheeks pinking.

  They sit in silence for a time, looking wretchedly at each other.

  “Did you say measuring and mapping them?” Hannah asks in a quiet voice. “What do you mean?”

  “The point is, Hannah, now that I’ve seen it for myself I’m not sure…not sure what to do about it. If anything.”

  “Was there a picture in the drawer of Suria?” she asks.

  “Not that I saw.”

  She chews at her fingers. “You’re right, George, something is called for. Isn’t it?”

  “It’s tricky. Finch feels he can’t deny the man.”

  “Money,” she says.

  “Peterborough has been paying them all handsomely. Especially the sultan.”

  Them, she thinks. Does he imagine her an idiot? If George has been involved, he’s been sharing in that wealth. How much has he been receiving from the Peterboroughs for his “assistance”? But she says only, “Money or no money, decent people wouldn’t allow this to happen. Even to their servants.”

  The colonel looks at her fondly. “I took the photograph so that I could show it to Finch. You know, show him what the bugger is actually up to. Then I thought better of it, considering that we need my salary.”

  “Oh, but surely James wouldn’t…” Surely James wouldn’t have colluded in the first place.

  “I’m sorry to have exposed you to such depravity, Hannah. I’ve been up all night trying to think my way around it. Trying to forget what I saw. My digestion is… I feel horrible, absolutely horrible.”

  “You were right to show me the photograph, George,” she tells him firmly.

  As the storm continues to batter the house, they discuss the ins and outs of bringing the matter to the Resident: whether it can be done without jeopardizing George’s trustworthiness in the Resident’s eyes, and the possibility of his inheriting the Residency when Finch retires, which is bound to be soon. Does Dr. Peterborough suspect him of snooping through his studio? No, says George, likely not. But it’s impossible to know what Finch is aware of already—perhaps “all aspects,” he notes—and if that’s the case, he would be doing nothing more than antagonizing his superior by flagging something he’s chosen to overlook.

  “You’d be reminding him of his moral duties,” she counters.

  “Precisely.”

  “Perhaps there’s something I can do?” she offers.

  “It’s help enough, my dear, to talk it through with you.”

  It’s true, this is the best and possibly the only conversation of any depth they’ve had in months. As it nears its end, they even reach for each other’s hands.

  “So please, Hannah,” he says, “stay away from the place for now.”

  She nods and excuses herself to make a dash through the pelting rain to the outhouse. Drenched and shivering, she perches over the dank hole, wondering at the photograph and the unexpected turn of their conversation. Poor George. Poor Roki! For the colonel to be distressed enough to come to her for help… She tries to recall another time when he’s sought her judgment, and cannot. No, the colonel won’t go to the Resident, will he? He’s already thought through the permutations. He’s thought everything through and decided to bring Slow Roki to her attention rather than James’s, so that he can warn her away from Idlewyld.

  Back indoors, Hannah towels off in the scullery. The weather will be a struggle for a week or two. After that the storms will subside and the daily rains will become predictable, manageable, and life will revert to a wetter, windier normal. Would the colonel really be quite so conniving? No, perhaps not. But he’d make the most of a bad situation.

  “George?”

  He’s upstairs in bed, groaning and panting.

  “Shall I get MacGillivery?” she asks at his bedside. The military doctor.

  “No. Had enough of that quack.”

  Hannah sits on the bed, observing him until the spell passes and he looks up at her. “I have an idea,” she tells him. She feels his hand reach for her leg and grab onto it, as if she were a piece of flotsam in his sea. “This is a dreadful situation, George, and I know it’s not your doing.”

  At this, he makes an emphatic noise.

  “The next time I go to Idlewyld, I’ll broach the subject with Eva somehow. Eva deserves to know what’s going on in her own home. In fact, I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t speak with her. And, if I’m correct, George, she’ll put a stop to it. She has that kind of power over Charles. At least, I’d wager she does.” Hannah looks at him, trying to judge if he’s thought through this particular permutation.

  “I don’t want you there,” he whines.

  “Because of these ‘studies,’ yes. If they were to stop, the problem would be solved. And this way, you won’t have to confront James about anything.”

  “I don’t want you going there,” he repeats more forcefully, trying to prop himself up.

  “Oh, I’m in no danger, George, good heavens. I must go. Once the rains die down a bit.”

  And she must keep going—to hike, to paint. But she won’t think too far ahead. Hannah gets to her feet. “I’ll make you some peppermint tea. Without any milk to temper it, I think the black coffee is too acidic for you.”

  He grunts. The grunt that means he’s temporarily defeated.

  Thirty Two

  Three weeks pass, spent fixing leaks, diverting puddles, and restocking the pantry as best as possible. The colonel, content perhaps with her presence, leaves her and Suria to the many chores. It is the promise of going back to her artwork that sustains Hannah, primarily, as well as a rereading of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Her dreams and daydreams sprout disturbing images of naked house girls. If the colonel has kept the photo card, and she would bet that he has, it will be in his study. Roki, looking sullen and caught out and calmly inching toward terror; Roki, hiding in a drawer or a file, concealed by paperwork. Hannah plans a visit to Idlewyld that does not involve a trek, so as to make herself completely available for Eva. At last she is able to slip away from Ridge Road, throwing biscuits overboard to Roderick as the cart bounces away.

  At Idlewyld, a house girl—thankfully not Roki—helps Hannah off with her slicker and Wellingtons. Eva appears during this process, welcomes her with air kisses and, with a finger to her lips, leads her upstairs.

  “What…?” Hannah says as she follows.

  In the corridor, Eva pauses at the door to Hannah’s studio room. “Oh, don’t looked so worried!” she hisses.

  They enter. Competing with a stale smell of tur
pentine is a floral aroma. By the window, arranged in front of an easel that has been dragged rather too close, is an enormous vase of cut flowers. Roses, camellias, orchids, heliconia, daisies, dahlias, with sprigs of fern and spikes of palm. At the center, an oozing bird of paradise flower points its snobbish beak to the ceiling.

  Hannah is paralyzed by the phantasmagoric centerpiece. When she finally speaks, it sounds like false cheer. “Good Lord, you must have bought up all the flowers at market! I can’t believe they had such a selection, two weeks into the monsoon.”

  “Three weeks.” Eva has found another lamp and lights it. “And I commissioned it.”

  Hannah touches one or two of the blooms, bending closer to inhale their scent and avoid facing her friend. “It’s very kind,” she says with emphasis. She dislikes the arrangement, fake and gaudy and overpowering as it is.

  “I’ve bought them for you to paint, of course.”

  “Oh!” Despite the location and the easel, it comes as a surprise. “But…why?”

  “That’s what you do isn’t it, darling? Paint flowers? You won’t want to tramp around outside in a deluge, and now you needn’t. I fully appreciate that cut flowers are outside of your budget, but not mine.”

  Good Lord, if she’s to gain any inspiration from these baubles she’ll have to pull them apart. Hannah cocks her head. Maybe she should do that. No, don’t let’s be quite so queer and pitiful. She sighs inwardly. She thought Eva understood what she was trying to achieve with her art.

  Proceeding as tactfully as possible, Hannah says, “In the forest the rain is quite manageable, actually. The tree canopy is thick enough that even a torrential storm only reaches the ground in trickles. Well, you saw for yourself on our trek home from the waterfall. And in the rainy season, the air is somewhat cooler.”

  This information has no apparent effect on Eva who is circling the flowers, pinching a leaf here, adjusting a stem there.

  “Though, I suppose I could paint indoors today,” says Hannah. “In light of the fact… In any case, there is something I need to talk to you about, Eva.” Her wobbling stomach has not let her forget.

  “Sounds ominous.” Eva checks her pocket watch. “I’m due for Charlotte’s science lesson this morning. There’s no point in the tutor struggling through the old science, you see, when I can teach her the new.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.”

  “So I shall return in hour or so for the ominous news, if that suits you.”

  “Ha! Fine. I’ll…I’ll be here!”

  Unsmiling, Eva glides from the room, clicking the door shut behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah says to the bouquet. “I don’t imagine this will go very well.”

  The candy-coloured flower heads witness her thrashing around, trying to settle, throwing the window open, drawing her shoulders back, sighing over her pencil. Trying to paint their group portrait. Like an audience of vain dowagers, they await her failure: curious, self-satisfied, not caring a cent what she’s going through.

  Later, she and Eva discuss her unfinished painting. It has been a rare opportunity for a still life, Hannah admits. She hasn’t painted one in years.

  “You don’t like still lifes,” Eva surmises. “Or does one say, ‘still lives’?”

  Hannah doesn’t mention they were considered a lesser form of subject matter, traditionally. “I used to quite like them. I think I’ve just fallen out of the habit of them, as it were.” She feels a little dizzy and imagines her blood spiralling through her limbs. Soon she’ll be pulling a rug out from under her friend and patron. Building her courage, Hannah busies herself with drying her brushes and scraping down her palette. “How did Charlotte’s lesson go?”

  “Fine, I suppose. It’s difficult to tell with Charlotte how much she actually absorbs.” Eva, who has been idly pacing the room, turns back toward the painting. “Aren’t you going to finish it?”

  “Yes, of course,” replies Hannah. To paint right over this mess! “But I like to clean the brushes as soon as possible. Even for a short spell away. Preserves them longer.”

  Eva crooks her mouth. “I do admire your dedication. Although, these fumes…how do you do it? They’re positively corrupting.”

  “Yes, horrible, aren’t they? Shall we—”

  “How about I meet you in the Souvenir Shop.”

  She finds Eva in the formal sitting room, nibbling at a sandwich. The servants have brought out tea and elevenses, and two house girls are arranged behind the sofas, waiting to assist further, another one by the entrance. There are house girls everywhere these days it seems, flicking glances to each other. How silently they move, how expertly they shift and glide in their sarongs; they are in all places at all times, helpful in every way expected. Yet how quite different each one is, in look and in voice. In breasts and hips and…

  “Your book is going well?” Hannah inquires politely. A familiar, reliable topic.

  “Stalled, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh no!”

  “It happens.” Eva pinches a crumb on her plate. “Doesn’t it happen to you when you’re painting? That something’s not working? And for a time, you can’t go on.”

  “Of course.”

  Eva puts a toothpick to her mouth and digs for a moment. “So. What is this ominous matter?”

  “Oh, it’s not ominous, Eva. You seem to have seized on that word…” Hannah looks over at the house girls, waiting with pleasantly arranged faces, eyes down. “And you’ve made this all rather fancy, for the two of us. I just—could we ask them to leave?”

  The toothpick jutting from Eva’s thin lips makes her look for a moment like a farmer’s wife. She stands and asks the house girls to leave, following them to the door. “I suppose you want the doors locked as well!” she jokes.

  But Hannah only nods, gulping, and Eva takes her time bolting each exit with a flourish.

  “Charles’ research…I think you told me he specialized in fish?”

  “That’s simplifying it somewhat. Concerning fossilization and its support for evolutionary theory, fish are his area of specialization.”

  “But Charles is not studying fish here. Here, at Idlewyld.”

  “No. That would make no sense.”

  “He’s studying something else.” Hannah folds her hands and pushes them out of the way. “Eva, I think you ought to be made aware of what’s happening in the cabin in the orchard. Charles’ cabin. Charles has been photographing native women. Naked...and…and posed, like…prostitutes. Some of them, apparently, are as young as your Charlotte.”

  “He’s been taking photographs of them posed like prostitutes?”

  “In the cabin. George—well, apparently, George came out here looking for me on the day we were hiking to the waterfall. There was nobody to be found, and so he asked to speak with Charles. One of the house girls led him to the cabin.”

  Eva lifts her eyebrows, expectant.

  “I suppose Charles didn’t answer at the knock. George let himself inside and—”

  “‘George let himself inside.’” Eva blinks furiously, the rest of her struck perfectly still. “What is this nonsense?”

  “I’m sure he was hoping to find Charles.”

  “And why wasn’t the door locked?” Eva demands. “The stupid man!”

  “I…uh… It must have been unlocked.”

  “The stupid, stupid man! Leaving the door unlocked!”

  There is something unusual in this reaction, Hannah reckons, but then again everything about the situation feels unusual and she’s having trouble keeping fossilized fish from swimming through her head. She persists, “I know this must be a shock. But I have every reason to think George is telling me the truth. He showed me one of the photographs. In fact,” and in that instant she decides not to implicate the Perak administration, “it seems that Charles is trying to document these wo
men. Specifically, their…” Hannah gestures down her front.

  “Their sexual organs,” says Eva. “Primary and secondary sexual characteristics.”

  “You know that this has been going on in your back garden?”

  Eva’s green eyes trip around the room. “Of course. I’m developing a key distinction: ornamental as opposed to adaptationary sexual traits. I’ve told you about the distinction more broadly. We’ve talked many times about it, haven’t we? If I can show that the ornamental traits are particular to a population, then I’ll have shown…Well. I can see by your face that it doesn’t matter what I will have shown.”

  “It’s just. I thought you’d feel badly about the women who… Don’t you think the way he is forcing them to—”

  “Stop being such a prude, Hannah. Women have bodies. They have sexual organs and sexual histories. Charles and I have discovered that there are no essential differences in skull shape or pelvic curvature between Europeans and natives. None. Though that’s not what some scientists maintain. They would have you believe that the dark races of this world are well-adapted to breeding and maladapted to thinking. Such assumptions are scientifically unfounded, and we need to prove they are unfounded. All the compassion in the world means nothing when it doesn’t rest on fact. So don’t bleat at me with your squeamish concerns. What George saw in that cabin is science in the service of equality. Equality of the sexes and the races.”

  “But—”

  “And nobody is forcing anybody. They come voluntarily. They’re paid.”