Along the Endless River

by Rose Alexander

  ‘It’s not suitable for the boy.’ Mayhew made this fact sound incontrovertible.

  Annoyance rose up and Katharine clenched her fists tightly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s not being educated. He’s learning nothing. You’re a woman of status now, you’ve climbed the social ladder. But he’ll stay right at the bottom where we both started if you don’t get him an education.’

  Mayhew lit a cigar and a cloud of noxious smoke surged towards Katharine. She batted it away. It smelt artificial, a vile human invention in a place where the natural scents of the forest should reign unchallenged.

  ‘Think about it. You know I’m right.’

  Mayhew’s pomposity knew no bounds.

  Katharine sighed. ‘All right, I’ll think about it.’ She paused. Mayhew didn’t know how heavily worries about Antonio weighed on her mind. When she spoke again, she made it sound as if something had just occurred to her.

  ‘I’ve an idea,’ she cried, excitedly. ‘Why don’t you relocate to Manaus? You could be Norwood Enterprises’ representative there. Since I got rid of the aviador, I’ve run things from here but now we are making serious money, I really could do with someone on the spot. And it would save Jonathan and Santiago from always having to make the journey downriver with the rubber.’

  Mayhew’s expression changed in an instant. Katharine could see him evaluating her words, considering them, working out if Katharine’s suggestion was a trick. He always assigned the worst of motives to anyone, presumably, Katharine thought, because that was how he himself operated.

  ‘You are absolutely right, my dear sister.’ Mayhew suddenly seemed quite overcome with the delightful nature of the plan. ‘What a brilliant idea!’

  Katharine had to hold back a cheer. Mayhew was supremely aggravating, but for their mother and father’s sake, she would always stand by him. And his innate love of money and success would mean that he’d make sure that Norwood Enterprises thrived – he wanted the rewards as much as – if not more than – any of the rest of them. In Manaus he would, quite truthfully, be an asset to her.

  She could see him thinking it all through, his eyes bright and calculating. ‘I’ll go right away.’

  ‘So soon?’ she replied, surprising herself with how genuine she managed to sound.

  ‘Oh yes, no time like the present.’

  Katharine could hear the cogs whirring in his mind, imagining the house he’d have, the life of decadence he’d lead.

  ‘I need to have everything in place for your next shipment,’ Mayhew continued. ‘Not a moment to lose.’

  ‘Well, if you really feel you must go straight away…’ Katharine let the words trail away as if too sad to finish the sentence, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

  ‘I really must,’ affirmed Mayhew, with an air of finality. ‘I know you’ll miss me but it’s for the best. I’ll organise a canoe for the day after tomorrow and get the hell out of this god-forsaken place.’

  He disappeared off to find Jonathan and arrange his transport and Katharine allowed herself a little giggle. Standing up to stretch her legs, she caught sight of a shadow beside the staircase. It was Thomas’.

  She went towards him and he jumped guiltily backwards.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ferrandis,’ he apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to pry, I was at the top of the stairs when you started to talk and then I felt that things were of a sensitive nature so I shouldn’t interrupt and then suddenly I’d heard everything.’

  It was the first time Katharine had ever seen him flustered.

  ‘Well, Mr Smart, what can I say?’ Katharine tried to look and sound stern but couldn’t suppress the smile that broke across her face. ‘You are really very… very… imperti… impertinent,’ and then, before she could say more, she started to laugh. Astonished at first, Thomas stared at her. Then, after catching her eye, he seemed to suddenly get the joke and began to laugh with her and soon they were both holding their sides and roaring with irrepressible mirth.

  When they were finally able to speak again, Katharine leant towards Thomas and whispered, ‘I know it’s awful of me to feel so, but I’m so glad he’s going. I can’t be myself when he’s around, putting me down and treating me like the incompetent little sister.’

  Thomas nodded, conspiratorially. ‘I agree that a representative in Manaus is exactly what you need, Mrs Ferrandis. It can’t come a moment too soon.’

  ‘Please call me Katharine,’ she said, ‘and I will call you Thomas. We know each other well enough to do away with the formalities of Mr and Mrs by now.’

  Thomas smiled and inclined his head gracefully towards her in acceptance of her offer.

  Once Mayhew’s decision had been made, and even more so after his departure twenty-four hours later, Katharine felt liberated, as if she had been given a new lease of life. She walked with a spring in her step and approached all her daily tasks with an alacrity that had been lacking of late.

  The worry that remained was that of her son’s reaction to his uncle’s sudden absence. To make sure he didn’t have too much time on his hands for fretting, she decided that Antonio should go with Thomas on his next trip into the interior, to some estradas that were not proving as fruitful as they should. It was planned to take place after Christmas and his birthday, in the new year, and Katharine anticipated their absence with equal amounts of enthusiasm and dread. It would be so quiet at Norwood, just her and the Indians.

  The night before they left, she and Thomas stayed up late putting together the route for the journey, finalising the estradas Thomas would survey and the list of seringueiros he should expect to see there. Several Indian porters would go with them, carrying supplies for the tappers and gifts for their families, strings of beads and squares of fabric, small toys for the children.

  ‘That’s it,’ sighed Katharine eventually, passing the hand-drawn map to Thomas. ‘You see that section there? That’s your last port of call. All the Indians going with you know the area well. You won’t get lost.’

  A silence descended. The lantern glowed on the table between them, lighting Thomas’ eyes so that the whites seemed whiter and the irises darker than ever. His skin gleamed, and his kind face was drawn into an expression of intense concentration as he stared from the map up to Katharine.

  ‘On the contrary, Mrs Ferrandis,’ he said, his voice even lower and more sonorous than usual. ‘I think I will be very lost indeed.’

  Katharine stared at him, forehead furrowed in puzzlement. Why had he gone back to the ‘Mrs’ moniker already? And what did he mean about being lost?

  ‘I assure you that your companions are experienced, as well as being local,’ she reiterated, ‘so I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  But even as the words were spoken, she realised that she did know, that she understood perfectly. And that this understanding had existed between them for some time, and had grown and grown until finally, now, Thomas had not been able to keep it in any longer.

  Very slowly, and very carefully, Thomas moved the lantern from where it lay between them and placed it out of the way. He reached out and took her hands in his. All her life, Katharine had felt her hands too large, too angular, too clumsy, too masculine. But now, cradled in Thomas’ deft and dexterous grasp, they felt fragile and delicate, and in turn she felt precious and desired in a way that even Anselmo had never made her feel.

  There was complete silence in the wooden office. For a moment Katharine couldn’t hear the forest, the frogs and bats and birds and insects. All she could hear was Thomas’ breathing, and her own, quickened with desire.

  ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered.

  She gave a small half-smile in response. ‘No, I’m not. Really I’m not.’

  Thomas shook his head, refusing to give in. ‘Beauty comes as much from the inside, Mrs Ferrandis,’ he said. ‘Therefore you are beautiful beyond measure.’

  The compliment was so unexpected and so lyrical that Katharine was still revelling in it as Thomas
leant forward, finding her mouth with his and kissing her with hard, purposeful lips. The kiss brought stirrings to Katharine’s belly that she had long forgotten.

  They kissed for a long, long time, and it was only when they finally released each other, starry eyed with the novelty and the joy, that it suddenly struck Katharine what she had done. How wrong it was, how completely and unutterably not allowed, that a widow should hanker after an employee, that a white woman should kiss a Black man.

  And yet…

  She could not deny, at the same time could not put into words, even to herself, how much she felt for Thomas. How she had, quietly and unobtrusively, over all these weeks and months, been falling in love. And now she knew that he felt the same.

  She looked at him and he at her, their gaze locked together in the half-darkness.

  Then she leapt up, suddenly, knocking the lamp over and extinguishing it, plunging them into obscurity. Feeling her way, navigating by instinct and knowledge of her surroundings, she fumbled unsteadily to the door and fled.

  This couldn’t be. It absolutely couldn’t be.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  London, 1900

  Reading the latest letter from Katharine, Mabel sighed deeply. She felt terrible for keeping her sister in the dark about their father’s accident. And yet she knew their mother was right and it was for the best, that knowing would only send Katharine into paroxysms of worry. Katharine always enquired over Mabel’s education, the development of her French, her desire to be a teacher. If she knew that Mabel was scrubbing steps and scouring pans rather than studying, she would be devastated. So it was better that she didn’t know.

  Meanwhile, life had settled into a steady, if monotonous, routine of drudgery. Mabel had Thursday afternoons off and at first, if she had time, she went back to Clerkenwell to visit the family. But they were busy, her brothers doing apprenticeships or working on the docks and Mary always sitting with head bent low over her sewing table, intent on the intricacy of her work. Mabel felt duty bound to join in and help her, or to do the housework for her, so it wasn’t much of a break.

  And watching her father sitting dozing in his armchair for hours on end, no longer the vibrant head of the family he had always been, upset her deeply. She didn’t know what to say to him, couldn’t bear to see him so diminished. Katharine had sent enough money to alleviate the immediate concerns about paying the rent or buying food, but it wouldn’t last for long. The happy, optimistic, rambunctious atmosphere that had always pervaded the family home was no more. Mabel began to find ways to avoid 33 Hawthorn Road.

  In any case, she soon discovered that, on a Thursday, numerous extra tasks would mysteriously appear, urgently needing completion so that, because she couldn’t leave until all her work was finished, she often had only a couple of hours left to herself. This wasn’t enough time to get to Clerkenwell and back so she began to explore the local area, staring into the windows of Bayswater’s smart shops – full of clothes and hats she could not afford in a million years – and the restaurants, with exotic menus of dishes she had never heard of.

  She went to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, despite Cook’s warning that girls who were ‘no better than they should be’ hung around in parks on their afternoons off. Mabel loved the mown lawns, majestic trees and rippling lakes there, and the light and fresh air were a blessed relief after the sombre, deadening environment of Brampton Square. Plus, dismissing Cook’s instructions was a small, if rare, act of defiance that gave Mabel great satisfaction. She was unlikely to be seen by anyone who would report back to the mistress and if they did – so what? It was her free time and she could use it how she pleased.

  One balmy summer afternoon Mabel was released on time for once and by two o’clock was sitting on a park bench enjoying the sunshine when a girl of a similar age came and sat down beside her. She was also in service, she told Mabel, after introducing herself as Kirsty, and was from Scotland, which to Mabel seemed impossibly far away. Her accent was so strong that sometimes Mabel struggled to understand her, but after her a while her ears attuned to her different pronunciation. Kirsty’s mother had died some time ago. Her grief-stricken father had taken to drink and an aunt had agreed to care for Kirsty’s younger siblings, but at age thirteen, Kirsty had been deemed old enough to work and to make her own way in the world.

  On being chucked out of the house, she’d decided to get as far away as possible and hence had ended up in London. She worked as third housemaid in a big house in Hyde Park Gardens – a good job, she maintained, for a girl from nowhere.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ asked Mabel, curious about Kirsty’s assured air and self-confidence.

  Kirsty shrugged. ‘Five years, more or less. I should be looking for somewhere new, really, but, on the other hand, it’s not too bad. The family have a massive estate in Bedfordshire, with all its own staff. When they go there for the hunting and shooting season, we stay in London with less to do. As long as we keep the dust down, the housekeeper gives us a bit of leeway. So, I’m sticking it out for the moment.’

  Mabel looked at her enviously. That she could talk so glibly about getting a new job, that she seemed so certain that such a job would materialise the moment it was sought. And that she didn’t always have to work sixteen hours a day. She snuck a look at Kirsty’s hands. They were in much better condition than her own, though the nails were ragged and torn, indicating that she bit them.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘I’m on the go all day, every day. The master goes out but the mistress almost never does. She’s always there, an invisible presence criticising and judging the four of us.’

  ‘Four!’ shrieked Kirsty, so loud that Mabel shrank back into her coat. ‘You’ve only got four servants at your place? That’s a pathetic amount for the toffs. They must have money troubles. Do they?’

  Mabel looked at her, eyes wide in puzzlement. ‘Do they what?’

  ‘Have money troubles,’ repeated Kirsty, somewhat impatiently.

  Mabel was bemused. ‘I don’t know. How would I know?’ And then, ‘how do you know if they’ve got plenty of money or not?’

  Kirsty burst out into a loud chortle of gurgling laughter. ‘You’ve answered your own question. If you don’t know whether they’ve got it or they haven’t, then they haven’t. Why? Because if they’re rolling in it, they make sure everyone knows it.’ She drew out the word ‘everyone’ to add emphasis.

  ‘And,’ she went on, ‘if they’re really not that much posher than you are, those are the people who treat servants the worse. The real toffs, you know, dukes and lords and stuff, they don’t need to make the point that they’re better than you by treating you bad.’

  A silence descended. Then Kirsty nudged Mabel’s arm with her elbow.

  ‘Come on, hen, don’t look so down. It doesn’t matter that yours aren’t as well heeled or as high up the social ladder as most. It just means you’ve got more reason to get out of there.’ She stood up and held her hand out to Mabel, pulling her onto her feet.

  ‘You need to look out, though. Don’t ever take a job that someone offers you in the street.’

  Mabel couldn’t imagine doing such a thing.

  ‘There are always people out looking for girls to put in… well, to go with gentlemen.’

  Kirsty’s tone was infinitely worldly-wise. Mabel, chewing her cheek, was somewhat unclear about what she was referring to. But ‘going with gentlemen’ sounded like something her parents would definitely disapprove of, related in some way to fraternisation. She wondered, not for the first time, how Kirsty knew all this, where she got her information from. Before she had a chance to ask, Kirsty had moved on to the next subject.

  ‘Right, let’s go down to the Gardens,’ she burbled happily. ‘And if there’s any young men there on their afternoon off, you know, valets or counter assistants or whatnot, we might get asked to walk with them. You feel ever so, I’m telling you, promenading with a handsome man on your arm.’

  Th
ey set off, Mabel having absolutely no idea what she was doing or why. Presumably stalking shop workers in Kensington Gardens was different from going with gentlemen, fraternising, or being ‘no better than you should be’. In any case, Kirsty was fun, her sense of humour infectious. Mabel trusted her and she had nothing better to do so why not go?

  A fresh breeze had blown up, rippling the water on the Round Pond. Gulls bobbed on sparkling wavelets, and the gleaming leaves of the plane trees glistened in the sunshine. Mabel was gripped by sudden joie de vivre. She’d never done anything like this before, and since she’d left school, she didn’t really have any friends. All her classmates were still studying or had perhaps taken a job in a factory or stayed at home to help their own mothers until they got married. Spending time in a London park with an entertaining companion watching the off-duty guardsmen parade past in their smart uniforms seemed infinitely preferable to any of those options.

  ‘Hey,’ said Kirsty, suddenly nudging Mabel again. ‘There’s a couple of lookers over there. We’ll just tag along behind them, all right? We can chat with them if they want to, but remember, no funny business.’ She seized Mabel’s arm and dragged her towards them.

  Funny business? Again, Mabel wasn’t sure what she meant but was bedazzled anew by Kirsty’s superior knowledge and information about absolutely everything. Maybe she was talking about kissing or something? At the thought, Mabel shuddered involuntarily. Obviously, she wouldn’t ever do anything like that with someone she wasn’t formally engaged to. Who would?

  Her eyes slid sideward to Kirsty, whose walk had taken on a more purposeful gait now she’d spotted her prey. It struck her that possibly Kirsty would. A frisson of excitement slid through Mabel, tempered with trepidation. There was something beguiling and exciting about breaking the rules. But on the other hand, how to navigate all the regulations about what was, and what was not, acceptable?