Galapagos Regained (64 page)

Chloe nearly swooned. Hugh Pritchard, Solange's former swain and the
Equinox
's second officer, a man she'd last seen boarding the stern-wheeler
Sereia
in Manáos—accompanied by her brother. She could not say whether the Lords of the Admiralty had made a wise decision in giving Mr. Pritchard a ship of his own. What mattered was his imminent landing on Galápagos, an event that promised to provide her with news of Algernon and Papa.

When not running Ralph's administration or scanning the horizon in search of the
Apogee,
Chloe cruised about the islands in the
Hippolyta,
recently returned by the Marxians to her customary berth in the hacienda lagoon, the furloughed Ecuadorians manning the helm and working the sails. These daily voyages enabled her not only to restore the slopeback tortoise to Indefatigable and the domeshell to James Isle but also to study the peculiar utopia that Kommandant Hengstenberg, Capitán Machado, Rebecca Eggwort, and the other fugitives had created on Albemarle. Ideologically this brave new world represented an amalgam of
The Communist Manifesto
and the biblical Book of First Kings, notably its account of Solomon and his many concubines. In the case of the People's Republic of Albemarle, however, the practicing polygamists were all women. The arithmetic would have it no other way. Whereas Eggwort, Tappert, and Hatch had once boasted amongst them twenty-one wives, the adult male population of Albemarle, including ex-prisoners and former guards, numbered one hundred and twenty-six. For the sake of matrimonial equity, each adult female had received a seraglio of six. Apart from inevitable squalls of jealousy and clashes of temperament, this heterodox arrangement had proven satisfactory to all concerned. During a particularly bracing visit to Albemarle, Chloe briefly imagined resolving her own matrimonial dilemma by recruiting Ralph, Léourier, Mr. Chadwick, and Solange into a harem of her own, but she doubted there was enough
epená
in Peru to make that solution acceptable to herself or anyone else.

Ten weeks after Ralph became Interim Governor, the officially appointed administrator of Her Majesty's Galápagos Protectorate appeared in the Bahía de Cormoranes, borne by the eagerly anticipated
Apogee
. Ralph dispatched Eugenio and Sancho with a message inviting Captain Pritchard and his illustrious passenger to a dinner that evening. At sundown Governor Hilliker entered the hacienda clutching a bottle of port from his private store and bearing news that was for Chloe most unwelcome: Hugh Pritchard would be indefinitely delayed, having become embroiled in an altercation with his first officer, and he'd requested that the feast proceed without him.

As staged by Eugenio and Sancho, the meal proved as lavish as the banquet at which Stopsack had presented his case for dragging the ark to Oxford. The opulence was much appreciated by Hilliker, a pistol-toting cavalier given to gluttony and braggadocio. Taking Pritchard's place at the table was Léourier, who, after bringing the Huancabambas home, had managed to build a private petroleum works on the Peruvian savannah, eventually distilling enough kerosene for a return voyage to Indefatigable.

Upon learning that his predecessor had been fatally bayoneted by the self-appointed Supreme Emperor, who was in turn hanged by his fellow emperors, Hilliker reacted with unconcealed dismay. (Evidently he'd been looking forward to making life miserable for both Stopsack and Eggwort.) Regaining his equilibrium, he asked about the two assassins, whereupon Léourier revealed that during his recent flight over Charles he'd witnessed Tappert and Hatch assembling a raft, doubtless with the aim of fleeing to one of the northern isles.

“Allow me to suggest that, as cold-blooded murders go, Eggwort's death was a felicitous event,” said Ralph. “At the risk of appearing derelict in my duties, I declined to hunt down the perpetrators.”

“The wisest course of action is often inaction,” said Hilliker, nodding. “Now tell me about these anarchists we've got on Albemarle.”

“They consider themselves Socialist revolutionaries,” noted Ralph. “I must confess to a certain sympathy for their experiment. Assuming they assert no prerogatives at odds with the Empire's interests, I would urge a policy of benign neglect.”

Hilliker slammed a corpulent palm on the table. “Done and done.”

For the next half-hour, Chloe attempted to alarm their guest with her deduction that, if the plundering of Encantadas giant tortoises continued at its present rate, the species would go extinct by the turn of the century. (“I've learned how to protect our reptiles from misguided theologians,” she explained, “but not from hungry sailors.”) By the time Hilliker had eaten his fourth hammerhead-shark fillet, she'd extracted his promise to enforce the same draconian quotas that had obtained during Ralph's tenure.

If Hilliker's vow was music to Chloe's ears, then the next sound she heard was a lyric poem—the familiar
chee-chee-chee
of Bartholomew the monkey. An instant later Hugh Pritchard strolled into the dining hall, dressed in the blue, brass-buttoned uniform of a British Merchant Navy commander, his pet capuchin sitting atop his head like a busby. Fortunately, Eugenio and Sancho had anticipated his arrival, and by the time Pritchard reached the far end of the table his chair had been deployed, his place set, and his plate laden with two sally-lightfoot crabs and a flamingo breast.

“How gratifying to find my fellow
Equinox
survivors possessed of such cheery dispositions and—to judge from the barren china—such hearty appetites!” Pritchard exclaimed, then turned to Solange and said, “When we parted company, your fellowship included Merridew Runciter.”

“Alas, he succumbed to an anaconda on the Solimões,” Solange explained. “Allow me to introduce the newest member of our party.
Je vous présente Capitaine Léourier,
a brilliant balloonist who came to South America in hopes of finding El Dorado.”

“A quest I have not abandoned,” said Léourier.

“Pray tell, Captain Pritchard, how fares my family?” asked Chloe, unable to contain herself any longer.

“You'll be gratified to hear that your brother and I enjoyed an uneventful voyage down the Amazon,” said the master of the
Apogee
. “Well, not
entirely
uneventful. Algernon pocketed another hundred
contos de réis
at the gaming tables.”

Continuing his tale, Pritchard related how, on reaching Belém, Algernon had exchanged his winnings for English pounds, and so after landing in Plymouth he had no trouble settling his father's debts and liberating him from Holborn Workhouse. Before the month was out, Algernon had relocated Mr. Bathurst and himself to a manse in, of all places, Oxford, a town he'd evidently held in high regard ever since his visit to the rakehells. “I should be happy to transport you and your companions home,” Pritchard concluded, “though I hope Mr. Dartworthy might become the
Apogee
's new first officer. The man who once held the job, the thieving Mr. Snead, has been relieved of his duties.”

“I stand prepared to serve your ship,” said Ralph.

As Chloe apprehended this cornucopia of good news, her heart went on holiday, capering within her frame like some fabulous tropical creature awaiting discovery by Alfred Wallace. Mr. Pritchard now compounded her delight by pressing a letter into her hand. Anxiously she broke the seal and scanned the page, her joy rising to heights their local balloonist could only dream of reaching. Algernon's words corroborated everything she'd heard from Pritchard, though the captain had omitted one nontrivial detail: her brother had joined the Shelley Society—hardly a surprise, given his hedonistic inclinations.

The freethinkers and I play at cards every evening. Until I came amongst them, they knew nothing of poker (only faro, basset, and piquet)—can you believe that? I normally leave the table five pounds to the good. It's like having a job, and so convenient, Alastor Hall being but a ten-minute walk from the property Father and I purchased at Three Manor Place.

“There remains the matter of our original mission,” said Solange, facing Hugh Pritchard.

“Do you mean our dalliance in Manáos? I'm a married man now. When I left Plymouth, Phoebe was four months gone with child.”

Solange rolled her eyes and said, “I mean the mission that sent us up the Amazon. Tell me, Hugh, old friend, does the Shelley Society still have ten thousand pounds on its hands?”

“Prior to our departure, I routinely checked the
Evening Standard,
” Pritchard replied. “As of Guy Fawkes Day, no one had proved God fictitious, nor had the ark hunters returned from the Orient. I could easily be persuaded to carry Miss Bathurst's illustrative specimens to England. Simply offer me the late Captain Runciter's share.”

Chloe sucked in a breath, fixed her face in a philosophic frown, and in two measured sentences consigned the Albion Transmutationist Club to a fate that perplexed all interested parties, herself included. “Dear friends, I must tell you we no longer seek to assassinate God. The Covent Garden Antichrist will always dream of deicide, as will the She-Devil from Dis, but Miss Bathurst desires only to join her family in Oxford.”

“Chloe, I'm proud of you,” said Mr. Chadwick.

“Lord Woolfenden will not appreciate your decision,” said Ralph, “especially when he remembers the three hundred pounds with which he seeded your mission.”

“I intend to pay back every penny,” said Chloe. “My brother is now a man of means.”

“Darling, I love you, and I want to wring your neck,” said Solange.

“
Au sujet de l'amour,
Mademoiselle Bathurst, please know that I still wish to marry you,” said Léourier.

“As do I,” said Mr. Chadwick.

“Gentlemen, please,” said Chloe.

“Our leader has been enjoying a surfeit of marriage proposals,” Solange explained to Hilliker. “Are you smitten with her, too? You'll have to get in the queue.”

“
Hélas,
I've failed to fire you with a passion for either El Dorado or myself,” said Léourier to Chloe. “
C'est vrai?
You will not become my bride and beacon?”

“Although your offer holds much allure for me,
mon ami,
” said Chloe, “I've had my fill of quests lately, particularly those involving South America.”

Léourier smiled plaintively. “I have always tried to live by that profound Italian sentiment,
Quel che sarà sarà
. Whatever will be, will be.” Elaborating, he announced that he would soon take to the sky again, retrieving his helmsman and his navigator from the Dominican mission in Peru, and then the three of them would set about tracking down every lost jungle city known to legend, lore, and lie. “Mademoiselle, though we are not fated to enjoy a future together, we do have our boisterous past. I shall evermore cherish my memories of flying you over the Andes, ferrying your tortoises to Duntopia, and making a volcano out of guano.” He raised his goblet. “Here's to you,
ma chère
.”

“To Chloe!” said Solange, lifting her wine to the elevation of Léourier's.

“To Chloe!” chorused Ralph, Mr. Chadwick, Captain Pritchard, and Governor Hilliker.

As the goblets sought one another out, making melodic contact in the sticky air, Chloe recalled not only Runciter's dinner guests drinking to God's unmockability but also the
Equinox
castaways toasting their leader's avarice, as well as the Encantadas Salvation Brigade raising their glasses to the Down House tortoises. The present ritual was rather less momentous, but she savored every chime.

No sooner had the goblets settled onto the table than Bartholomew began slapping his paws together. Perhaps he was simply resonating with the cheer of the moment, but Chloe decided he'd been vouchsafed a vision of the future, and he'd seen that it was laudable. Well, not entirely laudable: dreadful in many ways—the usual gallimaufry of war, greed, predation, theology, and rubber barons. And yet there was this happy fact. After Mr. Darwin's treatise received its posthumous publication, people would acquire a newfound appreciation for finch beaks and puffer-fish spicules, for the arched shells of saddleback tortoises and the vestigial tails of newborn babies, knowledge that, lovingly nurtured and thoughtfully propagated, might help the human race to feel more at home in the world, more like citizens of planet Earth and less like tourists, and so the monkey clapped.

*   *   *

By Chloe's calculation an interval of five hundred and sixty days, the better part of two years, had elapsed between their departure from Plymouth and her short trip—on the 3rd of May, 1851—up the gangplank of the ship that would presumably take her back to England. Whilst Hugh Pritchard stood on the weather deck of H.M.S.
Apogee,
arranging for the anchor to ascend and the canvas to drop, Chloe doffed her Panama hat and waved it at the well-wishers assembled on the beach. This party included not only Capitaine Léourier and Governor Hilliker but also a contingent from the local Socialist utopia: Kommandant Hengstenberg, Capitán Machado, Rebecca Eggwort—plus all the other polyandrous ex–Mormon wives. Unfurling the flag of the People's Republic of Albemarle, a patchwork banner featuring a domeshelled tortoise on a green background, the Marxians variously blew kisses, flourished handkerchiefs, and shouted, “Farewell, comrades!”

Thus did the
Apogee
commence the long voyage southward, destination Tierra del Fuego. Although her progress was impeded by unfavorable winds and the imperative to stay far west of the contrary Humboldt Current, nobody minded terribly—for they were finally going home.

Shortly after the brig reached the fifteenth parallel, Chloe opened her heart's book to the chapter called “Crossing the Andes with a Debonair Aeronaut.” She soon concluded that in refusing Léourier's marriage petition she'd made a sensible decision. Should she ever find herself yearning to discover a lost jungle city, she would straightaway seek out the Frenchman, knowing that their collaboration might eventually acquire a romantic cast, but it all seemed most improbable.