Davenport refused to follow Stevenson’s recommendation (command, really) to rest and stay in bed, but he grimaced with pain when he tried just to walk around the room. He claimed he was not tired, simply angry, then passed into sleep in an instant.
From the moment Davenport first told me the details of his confrontation and the fascinating revelations about Kitten’s Shelley mission of 1882, my mind returned to Geneva and would not leave it. I was once again in that cottage in the shadow of Lord Byron’s, hearing the word from the weak lips of Kitten, the cry of “Belial.” When Davenport woke, I was there by his side and I unburdened myself. “I must tell you something, my friend,” I said, preparing myself for his fury that I had not told him nearly ten years ago.
He slowly moved his face toward me and forced his eyes to stay open.
I blurted out my confession: “It’s about Kitten. When we were in that cottage outside Geneva caring for her in her final weeks, she said his name. Belial’s. She didn’t say anything else about him. Forgive me. I should have mentioned it to you.”
To my surprise, he did not have the reaction I’d expected. In fact, there was hardly a reaction at all. He rolled his head away from me. “I knew that she said his name. I already knew that. I heard her say Belial, too, once or twice. Much of what she said had no connection to anything in particular, you know, when she was in that state. I also did not think much about it when I heard it.”
“Now, what do you think she meant?”
“It is impossible to be sure, Fergins, but now that I know more I believe maybe she came to realize who it was that had led her to the Frankenstein novelette. To conclude who would have had the motivation to take her purpose away while at the very same time appearing to reward her. She understood.”
He fell asleep and slept another hour or so. I could have been mistaken, but his thoughts stamped a slight grin on his face that remained as he slept. He was pleased, you see, despite all that had happened to Kitten, that she was so sharp-thinking even in the end to have identified the hidden culprit. He worshipped at the temple of her intellect and I believe it was a comfort to him to know that she left our world with it still shining.
Stevenson and Belle looked in on him later in the morning. I stood up to greet our hosts and give the latest report on Davenport’s condition.
“Poor fellow,” Belle said, shaking her head as she kneaded his cheeks. “He looks rather pallid, doesn’t he?”
“You talk about me as though I were part of a waxworks display, Miss Strong.”
She laughed from the bottom of her stomach. “You know you are a perfectly unusual man, Mr. Porter,” she said.
Davenport was about to respond when Belial appeared in the doorway, which made Belle jump.
“I beg your pardon for startling you, Miss Strong. Haven’t you told them your good tidings, Tusitala?” asked Belial, chuckling a little with anticipation.
Stevenson gave a shrug. “I think Mr. Porter is rather occupied enough with his recovery to care one way or the other what I am doing, Father Thomas.”
“Nonsense!” Belial said, beaming and holding his gaze on Davenport. It was astounding that even in the company of Stevenson—one of the most beloved writers of the modern age—Belial carried himself as though he were the most important man in the room. “It will cheer him up while he recovers. You see, Mr. Porter, our esteemed friend here is nearly finished with his novel.”
“By the end of the week.” Stevenson gave up, confirming the news with childish giddiness and crossed fingers. He seemed weightless as he moved across the room to a window. “I’ve been averaging two pages a day. I calculate that makes me only half the man Sir Walter Scott was for pages by the day, yet I still will try my best.”
“Do not overtask yourself,” Davenport urged. “For your health, Tusitala, you must also rest.”
“There is no stopping now, Mr. Porter. I feel it all ready to froth whenever the spigot is turned. I shall rest when I am in the grave—or perhaps if we make it to Italy one day. I hope you’ll excuse me if my visits to your room are infrequent during your recuperation, Mr. Porter. Pray give it no thought. Your every need will be attended to in the meantime by my family and my family of natives, and I know Mr. Fergins will inform us if there is anything you need.”
“Congratulations, Tusitala,” Davenport said, and I echoed the sentiment.
Stevenson waved this away.
“Shame that you won’t be up and around in time to celebrate, Porter,” Belial said to Davenport. “But I know you will have plenty of time with Tusitala once you are better. Plenty of time for leisure once the storms have passed and you’ve finally gotten back on your feet. It looks as though I will have to be moving on to business at some of the other islands.”
“Of course you will,” Davenport said.
“But I will wait until I have a chance to congratulate Tusitala on a completed book.”
“Again, of course you will.”
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I am late for a prayer circle with some of the pious young brown men and women. We will pray for your health, too, Mr. Porter. I am going to give a sermon on a Biblical figure close to my heart.”
“Who is that?” I quizzed him.
“An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, ‘one who cannot be yoked,’ and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials.”
Stevenson watched Belial saunter out of the room, then broke into his own chuckle. “Missionaries. They are always so anxious that we believe in one truth or another. That is their entire calling, I suppose.” He noticed the anxiety I could not hide from my face and he pulled at one of the loose end of his straggly mustache. “Mr. Fergins, are you unwell?”