“They’ve found no ivory.”
Denys was still working, then. His days didn’t belong to him, and he couldn’t have come if he’d wanted. That didn’t mean I wasn’t crushed. I watched as Berkeley’s man gave the boy water and food, and then watched him set out again after Denys, heading fearlessly to the north, tracing the bend in the road. When he was finally out of sight, I felt my spirits sag. Pegasus and I could have died on that mountain in the dark, and for nothing. I wouldn’t be seeing Denys. We wouldn’t have our days at all, and I had risked so much to get them, to be here. I was almost sick with it.
I packed up my things, and then threaded my way down to the river to the site of Berkeley’s grave. Months had passed, and the mounded-up earth had begun to sink here and there. I groomed the plot with my hands and the tip of my boots, wanting to do something for him and to feel close to him again. Above me, a pair of starlings scissored the air, calling out to each other in an elaborate system of chits and replies. Iridescence bloomed along their chests and heads in jewel-like green and blue and copper. The leaves quaked around them, but the rest of the forest was still.
“Oh, Berkeley, I’ve got myself in deep this time,” I said. “What am I going to do?”
Nothing, not even the birds, answered.
When Karen returned from Denmark, I tried not to hear news of her, but that was impossible. Colony life was too narrow and too bent on exposing every turn and gambit. She’d been ill and in bed for a time. That year’s coffee crop wasn’t good, and her debts were mounting perilously. I’d also learned that Denys had set off for Europe with almost no warning, but since he hadn’t sent word to me directly, I didn’t know why. I finally ran into Karen at the Muthaiga Club at the end of March. She was there having tea with Blix, and seeing them, I nearly fell on them both. That’s how things were in the colony. You needed friends, no matter how complicated those ties were, or what they cost you.
“Beryl,” Blix said, squeezing my shoulders. “Everyone’s talking about how your horses might just win everything. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Karen and I kissed hello tentatively. She looked thinner. The skin around her eyes was drawn, and her cheekbones were hollowed with shadows. “Denys has gone back to London,” she said almost immediately, as if she couldn’t keep her mind on anything else. “We had two weeks. Two weeks together after eleven months apart. And yet I’m supposed to be grateful. I’m supposed to be brave and carry on.”
Part of me wanted to shout Yes at her, loud and strong. She’d had a long string of days alone with him when my time with Denys had been stolen outright. And yet I also knew the grief she felt. I had it, too. Now he’d left the continent again. “Why London this time?”
“His father is fading. He and his brothers will need to find a buyer for Haverholme. The estate has been in Denys’s family for several hundred years. I can’t imagine how difficult this will be for them all.” She shook her head and short curls tumbled. Her shingle had grown out roughly. “I know I should be thinking only of Denys’s family at a time like this, but I want him home.”
Blix coughed lightly, a warning or reminder.
“You’re tired of hearing this song, I know,” she snapped. “But what am I supposed to do? Honestly, Bror, what?”
I could see that he wasn’t going to tangle with her if he didn’t have to. “Excuse me.” He pushed back his chair. “I’ve spotted a friend on the other side of the room.”
When Blix had gone, Karen sighed deeply. “I’ve finally agreed to give him a divorce. You’d think he’d be more grateful.”
“Why now? He’s been asking for years, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I started to feel terrible about fighting so hard to hold him. I’ve just wanted someone, don’t you see? There was a time I thought Denys would marry me, but that seems a fool’s scheme more and more.”
I swallowed to steady my voice, determined to appear at ease with her. “Will things be more difficult on the farm, now, with Blix moving on?”
“What, do you mean with money?” She laughed darkly. “Bror has always managed to spend twice what’s in his purse. Then he asks for another loan…as if I actually have it.”
“I’m sorry. You deserve more.”
“I suppose part of me knew what I was getting into with him. Maybe we always know.” She made a soft clucking noise, as if swallowing air, or immovable fact. “Bror was never any good at feelings, but Denys isn’t any better, God help me. What can I do? He’s ruined me for life without him. That’s the thing of it.”