Galapagos Regained (31 page)

“I pray you, reconsider your decision,” said Algernon, firming his grip on his sea-bag. “Sail with me to Belém and thence to Plymouth. Converting my
contos de réis
to pounds, finding Father's creditors, settling his debts—these are feats a charming actress can perform far more efficiently than a dissolute gamester. I understand your desire to reach Galápagos, but by going east instead you'll be serving a greater good.”

“There are no greater goods,” Chloe insisted. “Only incompatible necessities.”

“Well said, darling!” exclaimed Solange, arriving on the scene shielded by her pink tasseled parasol, a frippery she'd purchased with her most recent stipend from Algernon. Collapsing the
guarda-chuva,
she sketched a curtsey before her benefactor. “You mustn't lure my she-devil back to England. Her destiny lies in the Encantadas.”

“I learned long ago that attempting to dissuade Chloe from her assorted destinies is as pointless as drawing to an inside straight,” said Algernon. He pivoted abruptly and headed towards the
Sereia,
the Mermaid, a ponderous stern-wheeler with twin smokestacks and a double deck, her ranks of windows gleaming like silver coins on a gaucho's belt. “
Bonne chance
, sweetest sister!” he called over his shoulder.

Solange turned her attentions to Mr. Pritchard and his capuchin, patting the monkey on the head. “I bid thee a heartfelt good-bye, my cunning Bartholomew. And I wish you a happy life, my excellent Hugh.”

Chee-chee-chee!
squealed the monkey.

“Bartholomew is sorry you aren't coming with us,” said Pritchard. “So am I.”

“My place is with Chloe,” said Solange.

“This will prove a mortal loyalty, mark my words,” said Pritchard. “You're but halfway to the Pacific Ocean. Lethal hazards await you on the upper Amazon.”

“Then please accept this invitation to my funeral,” said Solange.

Pritchard sighed expansively and, feeding Bartholomew a bit of manioc, followed Algernon up the gangway, the monkey waving his paw in a sprightly
adieu
.

Much to Chloe's satisfaction, her brother had booked passage on a Corporaçõ de Borracha Brasileiro vessel, its hold jammed bulwark to bulwark with
peles
. Throughout the trip downriver Algernon would presumably enjoy the protection of an honorable captain: no scalawag of the genus
Gonçalves
would steal his purse and throw him overboard. (Indeed, the journey might even increase her brother's wealth, should he decide to visit the
Sereia
's gaming tables.) But, alas, she could not enjoy these soothing thoughts, for her head vibrated like a citadel absorbing a cannonade, even as chills raced along her limbs like centipedes and her stomach played host to a maelstrom. Waving to Algernon as he stepped onto the stern-wheeler's foredeck, she marveled at the frigid condition of her flesh. The sun was broiling everyone on the lower Negro, herself included, and yet she couldn't stop shivering.

“Solange, I shall require your assistance in getting back to the hotel,” said Chloe.

“Are you ill, darling?”

“I fear I'm sickening for malaria. At least I hope I am, because otherwise I've contracted something even worse.”

“My dearest she-devil…”

It seemed to Chloe that the docks of Manáos had transmuted into a magic-lantern show staged by a demented sorcerer. One by one the luminous glass paintings flashed before her: the
Sereia
leaving the pier—a swaying palm tree—a scrawny yellow dog—a stack of
peles
—a cartload of plantains—an eddy in the river—the choleric clouds. And then, at the glowing core of the enchanted lamp, the candle guttered and died, leaving only a wisp of smoke to mark its passing, frail as a silkworm's thread.

*   *   *

A match flared to life. Whilst the clouds above Manáos burst open, inundating the city, the magic-lantern sorcerer touched flame to wick, presenting Chloe with a second show.
Flash
—Ralph and Mr. Chadwick, easing her onto the hotel bed.
Flash
—her paisley shawl, draped over a chair.
Flash
—Solange, applying a wet cloth to her brow.
Flash
—the ceiling, so fissured it suggested a map of the Amazon basin.
Flash
—the lace curtains, transmuted into wraiths by the screaming wind.

Hour after hour she lay on her mattress, soaking the sheets with her sweat as the sickness filled her fibers and veins. Her teeth chattered like a metronome pacing a tarantella. Towards evening an elderly physician with a limp appeared and offered his verdict.

“The English senhora has malaria, preferable to yellow fever or typhus but still a grave malady,” said Doutor Furtado. “The question is whether she has contracted the severe form or the moderate.”

Although prepared in her mind for this diagnosis, Chloe was not ready in her bones. The word “malaria” sent tremors of dread coursing through her frame.

“How might we know which type has struck her?” asked Captain Runciter.

She wasn't sure why her brother's dubious friend had joined the vigil. He probably viewed her condition as a threat to his £2,000 share, so he'd come in hopes of somehow aiding her recuperation.

“If the senhora dies,” said Doutor Furtado, “we may safely conclude she suffered from the severe form. If she recovers—”

“She
will
recover,” insisted Solange, wrapping Chloe in a woolen blanket.

“My fair philosopher, you are about to play your greatest role.” Ralph pressed a steaming mug of chocolate to her lips. “Lazarus's stricken sister, who defeated malaria and defied death.”

“The truth has set many a person free,” added Mr. Chadwick, “but soon Miss Bathurst will go to the Encantadas, there to set the truth free.”

Despite her friends' encouragement, Chloe feared that the gods of pathology had not yet done their worst. Her premonition soon came true with a vengeance. For five days she lay within the prison of her ague, alternately enduring gusts of wind from a frigid abyss and gouts of hot ash spewed by a fire-breathing caiman. During her rare periods of lucidity, Doutor Furtado coaxed her into consuming draughts of quinine, “a venerable preparation,” as he put it, “from the bark of the cinchona tree.” It tasted like mosquito paste spread on offal. Even as the medicine entered her simmering blood, a storm arose within her skull, as ferocious as the cataclysm that had doomed the
Equinox
. Aware of the irony, she prayed for the strength not to pray, but her entreaties went unanswered, and so against her better judgment she opened her heart to Heaven, whereupon Heaven, in its majesty, reciprocated—or so it seemed.

At first she did battle with her revelation. A self-respecting transmutationist will always take the field against a sickbed epiphany. But in time the implacable fact of infinity wore her down, and a putative truth shone forth.

A divine, benign, provisionally knowable Presence lay behind the multifarious façades of the universe. A numinous, luminous, unimaginably magnificent
something
. Call it the flesh of infinity. The light of eternity. The essence of the all. The song of morning stars. Call it God.

Within her reeling brain a
basso profundo
voice arose, intoning, “Chloe, Chloe, why persecutest thou me?” Why indeed? Why mock the cosmos when she could meld with it?

“Infinity!” cried the lapsed transmutationist, forcing the word through the rattling portcullis of her jaw. “Eternity!” shrieked the erstwhile antichrist, lurching into an upright posture before toppling back into the salty fen of her bedclothes.

An indeterminate interval passed. She slept fitfully. Her blood cooled. Her fever broke. She was vaguely aware of her friends speaking in exultant whispers, praising whatever profane force (luck? coincidence? cinchona bark?) they imagined had occasioned her recovery. When at length she surfaced into consciousness, she understood herself to be a transmogrified creature, racked yet redeemed. She had become an apostle of the Presence, its radiance now soothing her soul and easing the ache in her brain. To preserve this exceeding peace she would do whatever the universe might ask of her, even unto the cancellation of her quest.

*   *   *

Throughout the fortnight that followed Miss Bathurst's deliverance from the ague and collision with infinity, Malcolm made a daily habit of walking to the Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Imaculada Conceição, where she could reliably be found of an afternoon, lighting candles, kneeling before sandstone saints, and struggling to translate the captions on the dozen jars filled with martyrs' bones. Accosting her within the holy edifice (which was not really a cathedral but a tumbledown church, as shabby as every other building in Manáos), he would repeat the latest declarations of dismay from Dartworthy, Runciter, and Miss Kirsop. Not surprisingly, Miss Bathurst proved less interested in hearing about the English adventurers' low opinion of her epiphany than in talking about “the glue of the universe,” “the flesh of infinity,” and “the essence of the all,” which to Malcolm's ear sounded like a freethinker's euphemisms for God.

“How wrong I was to have mocked the cosmos,” she declared at the start of their fifth meeting.

“Allow me to suggest that this religious conversion, or whatever you call it, has more to do with malaria than with the workings of eternity.”

“And allow
me
to suggest that, concerning the factuality of the numinous, Reverend, you had it right the first time,” said Miss Bathurst. “Do you remember your recitation from the Book of Job aboard the
Equinox
? Whilst on my sickbed, I heard the morning stars sing together.” She sidled towards the donation box, evidently intending to purchase votive candles. “You will be pleased to learn I'm renewing my allegiance to chastity. My feelings for Ralph now occupy a wholly incorporeal plane.”

“Lo, the poor sailor, doomed to suffer the pangs of unrequited concupiscence,” said Malcolm, indulging in an uncustomary sarcasm (and finding the idiom to his liking). He pointed to a statue of the Blessed Virgin. “Your newfound faith has a curiously Romish cast.”

“When in Manáos, do as the Manáos-folk do.”

With a sinking heart he surveyed the recovering malaria patient. At one time her cheeks had glowed a natural crimson, but now, drained by the disease, they were as wan as uncured
hevé
. Offended by her own locks, those glorious chestnut tresses, she'd chopped them level with her chin.

Upon feeding a 200-
réis
silver coin to the donation box, enough to reify three prayers in wax, Miss Bathurst approached an altar from which rose a painted plaster crucifix surrounded by a grid of tapers flickering in glass tubes. Taking the mother flame in hand, she ignited three candles. “This night I shall pray that a consumptive child named Annie might live. I shall also ask the Presence to watch over Ralph and Solange.”

“Miss Kirsop will not appreciate your prayer. This morning she said, ‘Make every effort to reacquaint Chloe with her senses, so she can lead us to victory at Alastor Hall.' Dartworthy and Runciter expressed similar sentiments.”

“Kindly tell them I've been given to know that the Shelley Prize is no longer worthy of our efforts. We are perforce abandoning the hunt for the Tree of Life.”

The thought of making this announcement in the vicinity of Miss Kirsop filled Malcolm with foreboding, and he was equally loath to share the news with Dartworthy and Runciter—but he did as Miss Bathurst requested. All three former members of the moribund Transmutationist Club reacted in a predictably physiological fashion, their tirades mixing bile, venom, spleen, and spittle.

“Runciter expects you to write him a promissory note for two thousand pounds, just as though you'd won the prize,” Malcolm reported to Miss Bathurst at the start of their Thursday afternoon rendezvous. “Dartworthy insists that, having dragged us to the core of a hostile continent, you're now obliged to bring us the rest of the way to the Encantadas. Miss Kirsop says you've betrayed your most devoted disciple.”

“Inform my colleagues that I regret whatever inconveniences I may have caused them. Once well enough to travel, I shall return to England and follow the Presence wherever it might lead me. As for the immediate future, in my prayers tonight I mean to remember my father, my brother, and you yourself, Mr. Chadwick.”

For Malcolm one truth was now excruciatingly clear. He must tell Miss Bathurst about the Great Winnowing. By way of rehearsing his presentation, he apprised Dartworthy, Runciter, and Miss Kirsop of the Oxford Diocese's designs on the Galápagos fauna, eliciting from each a torrential indignation. Not until the following Monday, however, standing in the church before the twinkling galaxy of votive candles, as she made ready to light another 200-
réis
investment, did he find the courage to broach the subject with Miss Bathurst herself.

“I owe you a full accounting of Bishop Wilberforce's reaction to your bid for the Shelley Prize,” he said. Miss Bathurst lifted her pale, pinched face. Their gazes locked. “Even as we speak, an English brig, the
Antares,
courses towards Galápagos, Captain Adrian Garrity in command. Her passengers include the Reverend Simon Hallowborn—yes, the very Hallowborn who maligned you in the
Evening Standard
—plus ninety-two convicted criminals, all of them condemned to a Charles Isle penal colony overseen by a Christian utopianist who styles himself Emperor Orrin Eggwort.”

“You speak of Mephistropolis,” said Miss Bathurst knowingly. “Prior to our departure Algernon and I visited the map room of the British Museum. What has a penal colony to do with the Shelley Prize?”

“Upon reaching the archipelago, Mr. Hallowborn will present himself to Governor Stopsack on Indefatigable, after which the ninety-two convicts will take up machetes and garrotes, and then…”