The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(4)
“How do you do?” she said, automatically, like the well-trained parrot that slept in its cage in the corner. “I trust your trip has been pleasant.”
Mr. Lizalde’s whiskers had a bit of gray in them, but he was still younger than her father, whose eyes were bracketed with deep wrinkles. He was dressed well, in a gold brocade waistcoat and a fine jacket, and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief as he smiled at her.
Mr. Laughton, on the other hand, did not smile at all. His jacket was of brown and cream wool tweed, with no embellishments, and he wore no vest. She was struck by how young and dour-looking he seemed. She’d thought they’d get someone like Melquíades, a man balding at the temples. This fellow had all his hair, even if it was a bit shaggy and untidy. And how light his eyes were. Gray, watery eyes.
“We’re doing well, thank you,” Mr. Lizalde said, and then he looked at her father. “Quite the little princess you have there. I think she might be of an age with my youngest child.”
“You have many children, Mr. Lizalde?” she asked.
“I have a son and five daughters. My boy is fifteen.”
“I am fourteen, sir.”
“You’re tall, for a girl. You might be as tall as my boy.”
“And bright. She’s been schooled in all the proper languages,” her father said. “Carlota, I was trying to assist Mr. Laughton here in a matter of translation. Could you tell him what natura non facit saltus means?”
The “proper” languages she’d learned indeed, though the smattering of Mayan she spoke she had not obtained through her father. She’d learned from Ramona, as had the hybrids. She was, officially, their housekeeper. Unofficially she was a teller of tales, an expert in every plant that grew near their house, and more.
“It means nature does not make leaps,” Carlota replied, fixing her eyes on the young man.
“Right. And can you explain the concept?”
“Change is incremental. Nature proceeds little by little,” she declaimed. Her father asked questions such as these frequently, and the answers were easy, like practicing her scales. It soothed her fragile nerves.
“Do you agree with that?”
“Nature, perhaps. But not man,” she said.
Her father patted her shoulder. She could feel him smiling without having to look at him.
“Carlota will guide us to my laboratory. I’ll show you my research and prove the point,” her father said.
In its corner the parrot opened an eye and watched them. She nodded and bid the gentlemen follow her.
Chapter 2
Montgomery
It was not a river, for there were no rivers atop the thin soil of northern Yucatán. Instead, they followed a lagoon, which stretched into the jungle, like fingers gouging the land and slipping inland. Not a river and yet very much like one; the mangrove trees shaded the water and wove their roots together, sometimes so close they threatened to choke the life out of unwary visitors. The water seemed dark green in the shade, then grew more turbid, stained a murky brown by lush leaves and dead vegetation.
He thought he was used to the heath of the south and the press of the jungle, and yet this place was different than what he’d seen before, near Belize City.
Fanny would have hated it here.
The boatmen moved their poles swiftly, like the gondoliers in Venice, steering away from rocks and trees. Hernando Lizalde sat next to Montgomery, looking flushed and uncomfortable despite the fact that the boat had been fancifully equipped with an awning to protect them from the sun. Lizalde lived in Mérida and did not venture far from home even though he owned several haciendas throughout the peninsula. This trip was strange to him, too, and Montgomery gathered he did not like visiting Dr. Moreau often.
Montgomery didn’t exactly know where they were headed. Lizalde had been reluctant to share any coordinates. He had been reluctant in many respects, but the money he’d been offered served to keep Montgomery interested in this venture. He’d worked for low men, for crumbs. Lizalde was yet another bothersome job.
Besides, there was the issue of his debt.
“We must not be far from Yalikin,” Montgomery said, trying to build a map in his head. He thought there were Cubans there, extracting palo de tinte and fleeing the war back on their island.
“We’re at the edge of Indian country. Damn those godless bastards. They grip the shores,” Lizalde said and spat into the water, as if to underline his opinion.
In Bacalar and Belize City he’d seen plenty of free Maya people, macehuales, they called themselves. The British traded with them regularly. The white Mexicans in the western lands, children of Spaniards who’d kept to their kind, had no love for them, and it was no surprise to see Lizalde was ill-disposed to those free folk. It was not that the British liked the Maya for their own sake, nor that they always remained on friendly terms, but Montgomery’s countrymen thought the Maya rebels might help them carve out a piece of Mexico for the Crown. After all, disputed territory could become a protectorate with a bit of negotiation.
“We’ll get rid of that heathen scourge, hack those mangy cowards into pieces one day,” Lizalde promised.
Montgomery smiled, thinking of how the dzules like Lizalde had fled to the coast, boarded a boat, and escaped to the safety of Isla Holbox or else stumbled all the way to Mérida in haste during previous skirmishes against the Maya rebels.