Sound of Butterflies, The (40 page)

Rodrigues lay face down on the floor in front of his desk, wearing the same silk-backed waistcoat as yesterday, with patterns that swirled like a watermark. Papers littered the floor around him and an ink pot was smashed at his feet. He had not fallen without a struggle.

‘Senhor Rodrigues?’

There was no movement, and with a sickening feeling, Thomas crept towards him. He walked through ink, and paper stuck to the soles of his boots. Part of him wanted to turn and run from the room, but he forced himself to carry on. He crouched down and reached out a hand to where Rodrigues’s fist lay curled like a flower. Cold. Thomas snatched his arm back, leaving a black smudge on the man’s thumb. He closed his eyes. He should leave now: the man was clearly dead, and there was nothing more he could do, but something — a sense of urgency? Decency? Morbid curiosity? — made him open his eyes and bend closer to the body.

Smudges of blood marked the papers beneath Rodrigues’s face. And something else, which at first looked like pale honey that had hardened and crystallised. Thomas recognised one of the smells he had detected earlier: wax. A sound erupted; it came from Thomas’s own mouth, a gasp of horror. The wax had dribbled down the side of the man’s head, from his ears. Thomas touched it and a flake came away under his fingernail.

Who could do this? Somebody had poured hot wax into Rodrigues’s ears, torturing him before shooting him with one clean bullet through the head. There was something else about his face. Thomas spread his fingers over the man’s forehead and pulled. If he’d had any hair Thomas would have used that. The head was as heavy as an anchor and the face was inky and terrible. Blood caked the cheeks where it had oozed from the wounds around Rodrigues’s mouth, caused by the thick criss-crosses of twine that had been threaded through his skin in order to sew his mouth shut.

Thomas dropped the head with a thud and ran from the room, vomit cascading from his numb mouth and down his body.

Richmond, June 1904

The news of Agatha and Robert Chapman’s indiscretion is all over town within days. Sophie overhears Nancy Sutton gossiping to Mrs Silver, and when Agatha comes to visit, she tries to think of a way to broach the subject. As if she doesn’t have enough to deal with, with Thomas. But she cares about Agatha. It won’t do to have her reputation ruined, to be snubbed by the whole community, not at this stage in her life. Perhaps it’s not too late and Sophie can talk some sense into her friend.

As they sit together in the garden, Agatha chatters on about her idea to start up a millinery, to make the most fantastical hats. Ladies will come all the way from London to buy them — she’ll be the talk of the town. She hasn’t once asked Sophie how Thomas is. Selfish girl. Selfish, irresponsible,
stupid
girl. She’s succeeded in being the talk of town all right, but not for her hats. Agatha keeps on, oblivious to Sophie’s silence and unfriendly thoughts, and Sophie has an urge to put out a hand and cover her mouth, to have nothing but the sound of the breeze in the plum tree and the blackbirds singing.

But Agatha stops speaking abruptly and stands. She closes her eyes and basks in the midday sun for a moment before going on.

‘You’ll never guess.’ She opens her eyes but doesn’t look at Sophie, who waits for her to continue. But Agatha has gone red and, with a confused smile on her face, stares at the ground.

‘Well?’ Sophie’s impatience is complete; she is getting ready to ask her friend to leave.

‘Robert’s proposed.’

Sophie’s hand goes to her chest. This she did not expect. ‘But Aggie, that’s wonderful!’ Everything will be all right after all. He will marry her, and she will be redeemed.

Agatha screws up her face and hunches her shoulders. She slouches back to the bench and sits down again. She inches over until the sun finds her face.

‘Or perhaps not so wonderful,’ says Sophie. ‘What’s wrong? Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Well, I do like him, but that doesn’t mean I want to
marry
the man.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I just don’t like him that much.’

Sophie grabs Agatha’s arm with both hands, resisting the urge to shake. ‘But if you were to be engaged to him, it would make people more accepting of … your situation.’ Can’t she see? Why can’t she see?

‘Our affair, you mean? You don’t have to talk around the subject, Sophie, we’re both adults.’

Sophie looks down at her skirts and smoothes them over. Impetuous girl. She has to marry sometime; it might as well be Robert, if she likes him. She stands up. She doesn’t have time for this — she has troubles of her own, speaking of lies and secrets.

‘You disapprove of me, don’t you?’ says Agatha.

Sophie sighs. ‘Yes, I suppose I do sometimes.’

‘I knew it. At the theatre the other night you were angry with me about something.’

‘I don’t know. No. Yes, I suppose I was. Mr Chapman was laughing at us. And you were doing nothing to hide your feelings for him.’

‘Laughing at you? Not true.’ Agatha stamps her foot. ‘Sometimes you can be so …’

‘So … yes?’ Sophie looks down at her, casting a shadow over her face.

‘Self-absorbed. And oversensitive!’

‘I’m not self-absorbed! It’s
you
I’ve been worrying about! Everyone knows about the two of you now. You’re the gossip of Richmond. What were you thinking?’

‘Oh, blow what anyone else thinks!’ says Agatha. ‘If I were married to someone else nobody would think anything of my having an affair. It would be expected of me. But no. Everyone’s all …’ She raises her hands in mock horror, then begins fanning herself with an imaginary fan.

‘It’s all about discretion,’ says Sophie.

‘Lying, you mean? Keeping secrets? Like Thomas and his mistress?’

The loudness of her own voice surprises Sophie. ‘How dare you bring him up like that? How dare you even mention her?’

‘Why? So you can pretend it hasn’t happened?’

‘He is my husband. It is not your business.’

‘But
you
are my business. Look at you! You’re moping around. Get angry with him! Cry! Do
something
! If you just push it aside and pretend it hasn’t happened you’ll end up like all those other women who are married and miserable and who spend their days looking out windows and wishing they could breathe. You’ll throw parties and never speak to each other again. And he certainly won’t get any better.’

‘How can you say these things? I’m trying! I’m … just … trying.’ The tears come then, and she collapses back on the seat. Agatha puts out a hand to her shoulder but Sophie pushes her away with a fierce ‘No!’ as if Agatha is the problem, the one who has torn her body in half. She feels Agatha’s gaze on her, her friend who will not give up on her, will not be pushed away. When Agatha reaches out again Sophie lets her, falling into her embrace and sobbing until her chest aches and liquid comes from her nose and her mouth as well as her eyes, all over Agatha’s dress and in her hair, but she knows Agatha of all people won’t mind.

She cries for herself this time, for Thomas’s unfaithfulness, for his not speaking, and for what it means for her. For the life that she had taken for granted and that has been taken away. They sit for several minutes until Sophie feels the heat inside her cooling and her breathing subsiding. Tears must be finite, she supposes. A body might explode from such violent crying if it went on for too much longer. And Agatha is right — she has been becoming catatonic, just like him. His illness has been threatening to suck her in as well, to paint her life a dull shade of grey, and she must not let it.

She pulls back from her friend’s shoulder and wipes her eyes. As she does she glances up at the house and sees a quick shape move away from Thomas’s window. Let him see, she thinks.

They sit in silence for another minute. Agatha squeezes her hand. Then she speaks.

‘My darling, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to say such hateful, hurtful things, but you were—’

‘It’s all right. I know. I was judging you when I should have been looking at myself. I’m sorry too. All that talk of discretion. It doesn’t matter what other people think.’ She thinks of her own behaviour, going to see Captain Fale that day, and cringes. She had not been discreet. But she had been upset, not herself. How easy it is to make excuses for one’s own behaviour.

‘I know it was hard for you taking Thomas out like that,’ says Agatha. ‘And that incident on the stairs —’

‘Oh. Don’t remind me.’ Sophie leans back onto the seat and covers her face.

‘But don’t you see that it’s a good thing, Bear? It’s good that he got so angry like that. Robert said afterwards he thought Thomas was going to punch that man in the face.’

‘And you think that’s a good thing? It’s worse now! The whole town thinks he’s mad. My father will find out, and then he’ll be here in a shot to get Thomas put in some hospital for the dangerously insane.’

‘Oh, tosh. Thomas would never hurt you or anyone.’

‘I know that. But other people don’t. They’ll think he can’t take care of me.’

‘You’ve got to stop worrying what others think of you. He can still work, so he can still take care of you.’

Sophie crosses her arms. ‘
Still
work? He can
only
work. He stays in that room all day. Sometimes he disappears to the park — I suppose I can be thankful that his strength is returning — but it’s like living with a ghost. That is
not
taking care of me.’

But Agatha is right, as she so often is. Sophie must stop worrying about what others think. It is only distracting her from dealing with the real issues — Thomas’s illness, his infidelity, and whether she can forgive him enough to try to help him.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ says Agatha. ‘But I still think you did the right thing by taking him out. Will you do it again?’

‘I’m not sure I could bear it. It was hard enough in church, with all those pitying looks. But I do have another idea about somewhere to take him. I’m hoping it will help.’

‘Good! You see: it’s much better that you try to help him instead of leaving him to rot in bed. What will you do?’

‘I wrote to his friend at Kew, Mr Crawley. I just got the reply this morning. We’re going to meet him this afternoon.’

‘Good luck,’ says Agatha. ‘Now I have to go and see Robert and talk about this silly proposal. Are we still friends?’

Sophie smiles, defeated by her friend’s optimism. ‘Of course we are.’

Dear Mrs Edgar,

I was shocked to get your letter. Nobody has spoken to me of your husband’s condition. I did not even know he had returned so soon. I haven’t seen Mr Ridewell for some time, and I have not heard of any of Thomas’s companions returning either. By all means bring him to visit me. I would very much like to see him. We could take him to the Palm House, where he will feel at home — it is, as you know, the closest to a rainforest one can find in England. The experience may help him in some way, and perhaps we can find out what happened to him and get him talking again. I am very saddened by this news. Your husband is a bright and interesting young man, whom I have taken great pleasure in knowing. Please call on me today at two o’clock. Simply come to the front gate and I will meet you there.

Peter Crawley

Thomas doesn’t resist when she tells him of her plan, and she is heartened. He is not exactly eager, but he lays down his tools like an obedient child and allows her to help him with his coat and hat.

They wander down the hill to the station and catch the penny tram to Kew. It has been some time since they took a tram together, and the smell of the brakes and stale air remind her of their courting days. She reaches over and takes Thomas’s hand, but it is a limp jellyfish in hers. She does not pull away; instead her fingertips trace the shiny calluses, the bumps of his scars, as she looks out the window at the world moving by, everything so normal: passengers alighting from omnibuses; young women shopping with their mothers; men in straw boaters and candy-striped jackets.

Peter Crawley looks nothing like she imagined — he doesn’t resemble a beetle at all. His shoulders are narrow and his arms and legs like sticks, and yet a soft belly protrudes through the buttons of his jacket, reminding Sophie of photographs she has seen of native people in far-off lands, where malnutrition has distended their stomachs in an almost comical disproportion to the rest of their bodies. His receding hair falls in thin brown curls but his face is sharp; both his nose and chin point exaggeratedly towards the ground. Small black eyes flash behind small wire-rimmed spectacles. Mr Crawley has his teeth clamped together and his lips drawn apart in a parody of a smile, and he stares at Thomas with worry.

He manages to tear his gaze away from her husband to greet her.

‘Mrs Edgar.’ He nods, but does not take her hand. Instead he reaches for Thomas’s, grasping it with one hand while resting the other on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘My good friend,’ he says. ‘What’s become of you, hn? What
have
they done to you?’

Sophie is taken aback by his forthrightness, but she is also glad. For too long people have tiptoed around Thomas, Sophie included, and not addressed the problem directly, as if they could ignore it and it would cease to be an issue. But she shouldn’t be surprised. Peter is a good friend of Thomas’s. Even though she has never met him before, Thomas has always spoken of him with great warmth and admiration.

Thomas will not meet his friend’s eyes.

‘Can he hear me?’ Mr Crawley asks Sophie.

‘Yes, he can hear you. You just won’t get much of a response. You can try though, please, by all means.’

‘Right.’ Mr Crawley rubs his hands together. ‘Come in.’ He leads them through the gates. ‘I’ve got just the place for us to go today.’

The sky appears huge and white above them. The Palm House looms like the upturned hull of a luxury liner. Men and women promenade up the sweeping pathways, the women spinning coloured parasols and the men brandishing unnecessary but fashionable walking sticks.

Silence hangs between them as they walk and Sophie feels an urge to smash it with a hammer. Instead she turns to Mr Crawley to break it gently.