Rose Read Free Page B

wagon. Maybe he dipped into
his
Bible Fund and ran off with Gypsies.”
    “Anything. But I want to know.” From under his chair the Bishop drew a cardboard envelope tied with a red ribbon. He untied it and showed Blair the contents. “John.”
    “His name is John?”
    “His Christian name. Also, fifty pounds in advance for any costs that you incur.”
    “What if he walks into church tomorrow?”
    “You keep it all. Get a decent meal in you and some more medicine. I’ve had you booked into a hotel in Wigan. The bills will go to me.”
    “You mean, the bills will go to Hannay Coal?”
    “Same thing.”
    A hundred pounds was still owed him, Blair thought, but fifty pounds was generous. The Bishop was a host who offered a spoon of honey for a spoon of bile. Blairwas sweating so hard he was sticking to the back of the chair.
    “You think I’ll do this?”
    “I think you’re desperate, and I know you want to return to Africa. This is an easy task. A personal favor. It’s also a form of minor redemption.”
    “How is that?”
    “You think I’m the hard man, Blair? Anyone but you would have inquired about my daughter, what condition she was in when she realized that her fiancé had gone to ground. Was she distressed? Hysterical? Under a doctor’s care? You ask not a single word.”
    The Bishop waited. Blair watched rain tap on the window, collect in beads, coalesce and then sluice to the bottom of the pane.
    “Very well, how is your daughter?”
    Hannay smiled, getting the performance he was paying for. “She’s bearing up, thank you. She’ll be relieved to know you’ve consented to help.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “It’s all in there.” The Bishop closed the envelope, tied it and placed it on Blair’s lap. “Leveret will be in contact with you at the hotel. He’s my estate manager. Good luck.”
    This time there was no doubt Blair was being dismissed. He stood, steadying himself with the chair, holding on to the envelope and its precious money. “Thank you.”
    “You overwhelm me,” Hannay said.
    On his way out Blair had negotiated the globe and was at the door when the Bishop called after him.
    “Blair, since you will be working for me and near my home I want to remind you that some parts of the public do think of you as a sort of explorer. You have a reputation for getting close to the natives, first in East Africa, then in the Gold Coast. Picking up the language is onething; dressing like them and acting like them is something else. People like to call you Nigger Blair. Discourage that.”

Blair rode in a railway car as hushed and polished as a hearse, with oil lamps that were as low as candles. He thought all he was missing were lilies on his chest. It didn’t help that mourners seemed to have climbed in with him, because the rest of his compartment was occupied by two men and a woman returning from a Temperance rally. They wore militant black with red sashes that said “Tea—the Drink That Cheers and Not Inebriates.” Since he still hadn’t shaved, he hoped that he made a traveling companion too unsavory to speak to, but they eyed him like vultures presented with a dying lion.
    Though Blair had invested in quinine and brandy, fever came in tides that lifted him from crest to crest of sweat and left him exhausted between waves. Not that he could complain. Malaria was the minimum, the price of admission in Africa. There were far more extravagant tropical souvenirs for the unlucky—sleeping sickness, marsh fever, yellow jack, unnamed exotic diseases that caused hemorrhaging, paralysis or swelled the tongue like a pig’s bladder until the air passage was choked. In comparison, malaria was minor discomfort, a sneeze, a bagatelle.
    He rested his forehead against the cold window. Outside passed the bucolic scene of a farmer plowing behinda shire horse, man and beast plunging into a sea of mud. The English monsoon. Mud rose in brown waves, carrying the farmer away. When he closed his eyes, a