licking its chops in the hearth, giving off a woodsy perfume. Agnes tracked it by its heat and ran her fingers over the engraving in the mantel, reading the misspelt, ungrammatical Latin: Ille Terrarum Mihi Super Omnes Angulet Ridet. Could she read it because of her brief Braille training, or because Ronald had described it to her so often? She turned around, seeking his voice. It seemed everyone was out on the library terrace now, murmurous with pleasure that the tour was over and dinner about to begin.
She stepped outside and Ronald was beside her, his hand on her elbow. She heard percussive insects, the sliding whistles of the birds, an occasional howl that she could not identify. She sensed more bodies out here. Ah, the servants. A cocktail glass was pressed into her hand. She whispered thanks to the air as a slinky coolness slipped over the rim and ran down her wrist. Sir Stewart began a long toast – this was apparently his favourite drink, the Montmartre. Agnes sipped it. It stung her tongue with citrus. Ronald’s hand stiffened on her arm. His return to Shiwa had not been mentioned in the toast, and neither had their imminent nuptials.
At the dinner that followed, under a tinkly chandelier, Ronald’s sense of neglect seemed to deepen, his mood darkening – a gloomy cloud to her left – as the meal progressed. Agnes kept still, listening intently to the server’s whispers in her ear – what on earth was guinea fowl soufflé? – and calibrating her movements with the sounds on her right, where Miss Higgins was sitting: the clink of a ring against the glass, the plop of jelly as it slid off a spoon, the scrape of fork tines against the plate. The conversation pinged around like a game of billiards, repartees bouncing off each other on purpose, or unexpectedly, abruptly sending someone into a pocket of silence. Sir Stewart held the cue for much of the time, telling them the history of the estate.
‘Imagine! A seventy-mile march across the Congo. My boys winding through the swamp, carrying an English country estate on their heads. Trunks full of china, crystal, curtains, cushions, paintings, guns, a telescope. This very chandelier. I’ve always maintained that if one is going to do it, one ought to do it properly. The moment one gives up the niceties is the moment one stops being an Englishman.’
‘And do not forget the Union Jack!’ This was Henry Mulenga, the butler.
‘I was received by the Bemba chief, Mukwikile.’ Sir Stewart said the name with the lilt of a native speaker. ‘A wise man, that one. Incredibly old and benign, like a creature from an ancient world or a black-faced drawing of God in a children’s book. His people…your people, Ronald’ – Agnes felt Ronald soften at the notice – ‘welcomed us with a great show. Drumming and ululation, girls dancing bare-breasted’ – his voice vibrated over the taboo – ‘though of course there’s nothing like that nowadays.’
‘Do you get the Daily Mail out here?’ asked Mrs Vyvant. ‘It seems so terribly isolated.’
‘Yes, it was very lonely,’ Sir Stewart mused. ‘Absolutely no one to talk to. Two men came out early on – men I’d met in the war, you see. One was the son of a draper, the other a farm boy, no-nonsense men – I detest insincerity above all else – but they were not quite what one would have chosen for companions. One used to taunt me mercilessly about the servants’ white gloves and so on. He kept going on about that damned Coleridge poem. Eventually…’
‘Christ,’ came a whisper to Agnes’s ear. ‘At least someone noticed.’
‘Noticed what?’ Agnes whispered back to Miss Higgins.
‘Madamu,’ the server said in Agnes’s other ear. ‘Saddo of Hearty Beast.’
‘Oh, yes, thank you,’ she said. She had not quite finished her soufflé, which tasted like a gamier sort of pâté, but she let him replace her plate. She tapped the new dish with her knife, wishing she could use her fingers. She sliced into whatever it was – the heart of a beast? – and put a forkful in her mouth. It was gamey, too, but the sauce – a sour sweetness, cherry? – was divine.
‘I’m sorry,’ Agnes swallowed and turned back to Miss Higgins. ‘You were saying?’
‘“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree,”’ whispered Miss Higgins.
‘“Kubla Khan”!’ Agnes exclaimed. The fish tugging at her memory was finally caught – she had learned that Coleridge poem in primary school.