Eva Ibbotson

But even Dr. Gonzales, when he came, could not make Isobel change her mind. It was, she told herself, Henry’s own heritage that she was trying to save; it was because of Henry and Stavely that she must find Rom at once and get rid of the hussy who had, after all, managed to make herself known to him. To be soft now, decided Isobel, turning away from the white face and dark-ringed eyes of her small son, would be to do Henry no service. Even now some dreadful school or institution might be making an offer for Stavely and those wretched trustees would accept anything to get their money.

So Henry was dressed, his things packed—and presently he sat on his bed waiting for the cab that was to take them to the harbor. His legs, thinner than ever, dangled from the high white bed and every so often he coughed—a racking, prolonged cough that shook his small frame—but he sat as straight as a ramrod and when his mother said, as she did from time to time, “You feel better now, don’t you, Henry?” he answered, “Yes, thank you,” in as convincing a voice as he could manage. And sometimes he was rewarded by her smile.

The cab arrived. Sister Concepcion bustled in, her face creased with concern, and kissed Henry who clung to her in a way which Isobel thought excessive. Sister Annunciata picked up Henry’s case.

“Thank you,” said Isobel to the nuns, holding out her hand. “You have been very kind and I am grateful. When I get back to England, I will make a donation to your Order.”

Sister Margharita murmured a suitable acknowledgement, while Henry slipped off the side of the bed and stood up. This turned out to be more difficult than he had expected, but it was possible. And it had to be possible, too, to walk to the door. One simply put out one foot and then the other… I can do it, said Henry to himself. But he couldn’t—not quite. Far more weakened by his illness than he realized, he swayed as the room spun around and would have fallen, but that Sister Concepcion caught him in her motherly arms and carried him out to the cab.

Isobel, walking ahead, had seen nothing.

Those who believe that nuns are gentle soft-voiced souls who speak ill of no one, would have been surprised could they have heard Sister Concepcion and her two helpers in the Convent of the Sacred Heart after the evening meal. But by that time Isobel and her son had steamed out of harbor and were once more en route for the Golden City.

Chapter Seventeen

“I must say I think they have it all wrong, the people who say that to part is to die a little. It seems to me,” said Harriet, “that to part is to die really quite a lot. I mean, thirty-six hours without you…”

She stood on the terrace wearing the extraordinarily becoming blue dress that Marie-Claude had bought, waiting for Furo to bring around the black car in order to drive her to Manaus. For the Company was leaving the following day, due to embark on the Lafayette on Friday evening ready to sail at dawn, and she was going to say goodbye to Madame Simonova and spend a last night with her friends at the Metropole.

Rom stood beside her, troubled for no reason he could understand. She holds my shadow, he thought, quoting the phrase his Indians used to describe someone who had them in their power. Once it had seemed to him that this country was the “incomparable remedy.” Now it was this quiet, unspectacular girl, whose loss would utterly diminish him.

But why should he lose her?

“Do you want me to go back with the Company?” Harriet had asked a few days earlier. “Would that be… the right thing to do?”

“Want you to go back? Want you to? God, Harriet, do you have to ask me that?” Rom had replied. “Do you want to go with them?”

“No, I don’t. I would like to stay… if it is convenient.”

“Convenient? Sometimes I think you’re a little mad. Perhaps you should come upstairs,” he had said furiously. “I don’t seem to be able to make you understand anything when you’re on your feet.”

Since then she had abandoned herself to a degree of creative loving which exceeded anything he had ever imagined, her passionate physical response balanced by a respect for his work that gave him both rest and stimulus. But for her solitary practice sessions each morning at her makeshift bane, he would have sworn that she was utterly content.

“I wish I could have gone with you,” he said yet again. “I hate you to go alone.”

He had intended to take Harriet to Manaus himself and make good his promise to Simonova to bring her to say goodbye, but Alvarez—his work at Ombidos completed—was calling at Sao Gabriel on his way home, and to Alvarez Rom owed a debt that must be paid. There was no question of Harriet being in danger. Edward had been seen standing on the deck of the Gregory as she steamed away from Belem, and it was most unlikely that a man who had made such an idiot of himself once would return to the attack. Moreover de Silva was back in Manaus and well able to control the antics of his men.

Why, then, this unease?