Journey to the River Sea

Chapter Twenty-One

Miss Minton was staying at the Keminskys’. She had lost everything in the fire except her trunk of books, but with her butterfly money she bought the few things she needed. Because the Keminskys had been kind to her, she was determined to do her duty, so each morning she taught Olga and helped the countess with her letters.

The rest of the day she searched for Maia.

It was now a week since Maia had vanished. Miss Minton had always been thin, but now she looked like a walking skeleton. When she passed through the streets people turned to look at her anguished face.

The Carters’ servants — Tapi, Furo and the others — had not returned. When they had news of the fire, Old Lila had fallen ill with a raging fever, certain that they had killed Maia by leaving her, and they had gone further into the forest to search for a medicine man who could cure her.

But Miss Minton went to talk to the Indians living along the river bank and by the docks; she searched the ruins of the bungalow again and again. She questioned the river patrols, and the people who came in on the ships, in case Maia had lost her memory and wandered off.

Many people helped her. The Keminskys — Sergei in particular — the chief of police, the Haltmanns, Madame Duchamp from the dancing class and the children who worked with her. In the short time she had been in the Amazon, Maia had made many friends.

But the person who stopped Minty losing her reason was Professor Glastonberry. Every morning he left the museum in charge of his assistant and searched for clues.

The professor alone was certain that Maia was not dead.

‘There are almost always… remains,’ he said, ‘when someone burns to death.’

‘You mean… bones… or… teeth?’ asked Miss Minton.

‘That’s what I mean,’ said the professor firmly.

He worked with the chief of police, and the count, he spent hours at the docks, and at least twice a day he came back to see that Miss Minton had eaten something, or even slept.

But when a week had passed, Miss Minton gave up hope. She had as good as killed Maia by deserting her. Now she must cable Mr Murray and tell him that Maia was dead.

She had put on her hat to go to the post office when the Keminskys’ maid showed in the professor.

As soon as she saw his face, Miss Minton reached for a chair.

‘Is there—’ she began.

‘Yes, there is news. A man in a trading canoe on the Agarapi saw the Arabella. And he was certain that two children were aboard.’

Miss Minton looked round the Keminskys’ drawing room as though she would find there the powerful boat she needed, ready and waiting.

‘I must go at once,’ she said.

‘We must go at once,’ said the professor.

The countess begged her to wait for her husband’s return. ‘He could find you a good boat and a crew.’

But waiting was something that Miss Minton could not do.

‘I’m going to buy some supplies and a few things Maia might need,’ she said to the professor. ‘I’ll meet you at the docks in an hour.’

But when they reached the harbour there was no boat to hire and no one to help them. It was midday; everyone had gone home for lunch, and for the afternoon sleep which followed it.

‘Well, we shall have to steal one,’ said Miss Minton.

Then they saw a boat they knew. The Carters’ launch; the spinach-coloured boat without a name. Gonzales had brought it down after the fire to sell and help clear Mr Carter’s debts.

‘No one will miss it for a few days,’ said Miss Minton. ‘And if they do, it doesn’t matter.’ She looked at the professor. ‘Can you manage her?’

‘I expect so,’ said Professor Glastonberry. He sighed, but he didn’t try to stop her. It would have been like trying to stop an avalanche. ‘There seems to be enough wood stacked up for now.’

Miss Minton had already picked up her skirts and jumped aboard. Now she took up the boathook and waited while the professor fed the furnace with wood and the engine spluttered slowly into life.

‘If we find Maia,’ said Miss Minton as they set off, ‘I swear I’ll give this boat a proper name.’

The journey they took up the Negro and into the Agarapi river was very different from the dreamy voyage Finn and Maia had made the week before.

‘Faster — can’t we go faster?’ Miss Minton kept saying.

When their supply of wood ran low, she jumped ashore, grasping the machete which Furo had left with the other tools, and slashed her way through the undergrowth as though she had been born with a knife in her hand.

Everything she had forbidden her pupils to do, she did herself — thinking gloomy thoughts, going off into black daydreams. One minute she thought that Maia had died in the fire, and the child seen on the Arabella was an Indian girl to whom Finn had given a ride. The next minute she thought that it had been Maia, but that she had now drowned, or had reached the Xanti who had killed her.

‘You couldn’t blame them if they’d turned savage,’ she said, ‘the way some of the tribes have been treated.’

‘Yara was a very gentle soul,’ said the professor. ‘Finn’s mother.’

‘That was then,’ said Miss Minton.

The professor left her alone and gave his mind to the boat. The launch was larger and faster than the Arabella, but this only meant that she needed more wood. He had taken off his shirt; his chest was covered in smuts, his face was crimson from the heat, but he pushed the boat on like a mad magician.

But when Miss Minton tried to make him sail on through the night he put his foot down.

‘It’s dangerous and foolish,’ he said. ‘If we run aground we’ll never get her off.’

So Miss Minton lay down in the cabin and the professor lay down on the deck and as soon as the first light came, Miss Minton made black coffee so strong that it almost took the roof off their mouths — and then they were off again.

‘I was an idiot,’ she said, sitting in the stern with her hand on the tiller. ‘I should have stayed with Henry Hartington who pushed puppies through the wire mesh of tennis courts. Or Lavinia Freemantle who plucked the wings off butterflies. Goodness knows, I’ve had enough awful children to look after. But Maia…’

They saw things the professor would have loved to stop for: a deserted humming bird nest with two eggs no bigger than peas, a scarlet orchid which was new to him — but Miss Minton could not bear him to halt the boat. Even if a giant sloth with long red hair had come lumbering down to the water’s edge, she would have insisted on going on.

But he did not let everything pass.

‘Do you have to go on calling me Professor Glastonberry?’ he complained when they had travelled for three days.

Miss Minton was steering, looking for signs of sandbanks or submerged rocks.

‘I don’t know your Christian name,’ she said.

The professor blushed. ‘It’s Neville,’ he admitted.

Miss Minton turned to look at him — oil-stained, unshaven, dripping with sweat — and woke up to what he was doing for her.

‘What’s wrong with Neville?’ she said.

After that she became calmer and more sensible. She opened some of the tins they had brought and made proper meals. She even allowed herself to see the beauty of the river and remembered how once she had hoped to make a living as a naturalist.

‘You won’t lose your job because of this?’ she asked. ‘Coming away so suddenly?’

The professor shrugged.

‘Probably not. But if I do it doesn’t matter much. I’d have to retire anyway in a couple of years and I have a bit of money saved.’ He put another log of wood into the firebox. ‘I used to go on trips with Taverner sometimes. I could make a living like this… it’s not just collecting — people pay good money now to be shown the wildlife.’ He stared out over the water. ‘It was what I meant to do when I came out here, but my wife didn’t care for travelling.’

They turned into the Agarapi and soon afterwards saw a great snake, endlessly long, rustling through the leaves and dropping down into the dark water.

‘An anaconda,’ said the professor.

‘Is it dangerous?’ asked Miss Minton.

‘Not to us,’ said the professor. ‘It’s a good omen — the God of the Water making himself known.’

‘Then perhaps we’ll find her,’ said Miss Minton under her breath.

‘What do you mean to do with Maia when you do find her?’ the professor asked that night.

‘Take her back to the Keminskys and never let her out of my sight again,’ said Miss Minton.

‘She may not find it easy.’

‘Why on earth not? The Keminskys are the kindest people in the world.’

‘Yes. But she has tasted freedom.’

‘That’s neither here nor there,’ snapped Miss Minton, whose corset was sticking to her back. ‘I’ve tasted freedom too,’ she found herself saying. ‘But I have to go back and so does she.’

Now they had to remember the route Finn had meant to take, but lack of sleep and anxiety were beginning to make them clumsy. And there was another worry: the draught of the Carter boat was greater than that of the Arabella. What if the river became too shallow for them to go on?

By the fifth day Miss Minton had secretly given up hope and even the professor stopped trying to be cheerful.

Then, just a week after they had set off, they rounded a bend and heard the barking of a dog.

The children turned and saw the spinach-green boat coming towards them.

‘Oh no! Not the Carters!’ said Maia. She looked round desperately for somewhere to hide. ‘If I ran off into the jungle…’

But it wasn’t the Carters. In a way it was worse, because from the woman who now rose from her seat in the stern, she would not have tried to hide or run away.

‘You’re mad!’ shouted Miss Minton across the narrowing gap between the boats. ‘You’re completely mad, Maia. What do you mean by this?’

Then she disappeared into the cabin where — for the first time since Maia had been lost in the fire — she burst into tears.

But the relief of seeing Maia safe soon took a different turn. On board the Arabella she complained about Maia’s tangled hair, her bare feet, her strange clothes. She had brought a toothbrush — even a hairbrush — but as she said, it would take days to get Maia to look civilized again. She berated Finn for taking Maia off, she enquired nastily about his Latin, and wanted to know how often they took their quinine pills. By the time she had finished nagging and finding fault, Maia was almost ready to wish that Minty had deserted her.

Later, the children went over to have supper on the Carters’ launch. The professor, who turned out to be an enthusiastic cook, had opened a tin of corned beef and made a splendid hash with wild onions and peppers.

Finn, who had always admired the professor, had brought over some specimens for him to identify — and it was now that they heard what had happened to the Carters.

‘It’s rather an amazing story,’ said Miss Minton. ‘Lady Parsons actually cabled and offered them a home! You can imagine how pleased the twins were — going off to live with a proper Lady!’

Maia was surprised. ‘She always seemed such a fierce person in the painting — that square face, and her choker of pearls.’

‘Well, she’s certainly done her duty,’ said Miss Minton. ‘They sailed just before we came away.’

‘Did Mr Carter go too?’ asked Finn.

Miss Minton shook her head. ‘He has to stay in hospital for a while. He’s probably not sorry because what faces him when he comes out will not be pleasant.’ And she explained about the trial and what would happen if he was found guilty.

But soon the talk turned to the Keminskys.

‘I’m sorry you never got my note that night,’ said Minty. ‘I was arranging for us to go and live with them. You’ll like that, won’t you?’ she asked Maia.

Maia was silent, looking down at her plate.

‘Of course she will,’ jeered Finn. ‘Sergei will be able to kneel at her feet like a person in a book.’

Miss Minton quelled him with a look. ‘The Keminskys have been kindness itself. They’ve prepared a room for Maia at the top of the house with a view of the river.’

But Maia did not want to look at the river; she wanted to be on it. The grand house, the rich food, the Russian babble meant nothing to her now. She wanted to be with Finn, and free…

‘Do I have to go back?’ she asked quietly.

‘Yes. First thing tomorrow morning,’ said Miss Minton. ‘Bring your belongings as soon as you’ve washed.’

Knowing it was her last night on the Arabella, Maia fought against sleep. She must remember it all — the lapping of the water against the side of the boat, the white moths, the fireflies…

Finn too was awake. ‘When we’re grown up I’ll come back for you, I promise. No one can stop us then.’

But she wasn’t grown up and nor was he, and Finn was going on alone. The professor had tried to persuade him to come back with them, but Finn only said, ‘I promised my father I’d go and find the Xanti. I promised.’

Now though, lying in the dark, he realized how much he hated the idea of going on by himself. He wasn’t afraid exactly; he knew he could do it — but it suddenly seemed utterly dismal to go on without his friend.

‘We could still run away into the forest,’ said Maia.

But Finn said no. ‘Minty really cares about you. The professor told me she nearly went mad when she thought you’d been killed in the fire. You can’t play tricks on her — or on him. They’re good people. It’s just… oh, why can’t grown-ups understand that we might know what is right for us just as well as they do?’

The children slept at last — but on the boat without a name, Miss Minton lay awake.

After a while she got up and went out onto the deck. Everything had turned out as she had hoped. She had found Maia, and Maia was safe and well. Not only safe and well, but happy — at least she had been. Finn too — they had kept the boat tidy, labelled their specimens properly, taken their quinine. Bernard would have been proud of his son.

So why did she feel so… uncomfortable?

Behind her, the professor stirred in his sleep.

‘Are you awake?’ she asked him.

He opened his eyes. ‘I am now,’ he said.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Miss Minton said. ‘I’ll go and make us some tea.’

The children slept late, and washed and dressed almost in silence. Both of them were afraid to speak.

Maia packed her belongings in an old canvas bag and stroked the dog.

‘I’ll come over in a minute and say goodbye,’ said Finn.

The Carters’ boat was ready to leave, breakfast tidied away, ropes coiled. The professor was riddling the firebox and feeding in fresh logs. Miss Minton, sitting in the stern, had a parcel wrapped in sacking on her knees.

‘I’m ready,’ said Maia trying to keep her voice steady. She mustn’t cry; above all, she mustn’t sulk. ‘Finn’s coming over to say goodbye.’

‘No need,’ said Miss Minton.

‘He’d like to.’

‘All the same, there is no need.’

Maia looked at her governess. Miss Minton seemed different… Softer? Rounder? More at peace?

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why is there no need?’

‘Because we’re coming with you. We’re going on. Get back on the Arabella and tell Finn we’ll follow three lengths behind.’

As Maia turned to go, hardly believing that there could be such happiness, she heard a loud splash. Miss Minton was leaning over the side, watching the parcel she had held on her knee floating away downriver.

‘What was that?’ asked Maia.

Miss Minton straightened herself.

‘If you must know,’ she said, ‘it was my corset.’